UNDER  THE  WILLOWS 


AND 


OTHER    POEMS. 


BY 


JAMES    RUSSELL    LOWELL- 


\J 


BOSTON: 
FIELDS,    OSGOOD,    &    CO., 

SUCCESSORS  TO   TICKNOR  AND   FIELDS. 
1869. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  iB^5,  by 

JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL, 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


UNIVKRSITY  PRFSS  :  WELCH,  Bir.Ki  ow,  &  Co., 

CAMBRinC.P.. 


f  S 

<- 


TO    CHARLES    ELIOT    NORTON. 

AGRO     DOLCE. 

rilHE  wind  is  roistering  out  of  doors, 
-*-    My  windows  shake  and  my  chimney  roars  ; 
My  Elmwood  chimneys  seem   crooning  to  me, 
As  of  old,  in  their  moody,  minor  key, 
And  out  of  the  past  the  hoarse  wind  blows, 
As  I  sit  in  my  arm-chair,  and  toast  my  toes. 

"  Ho  !  ho  !  nine-and-forty,"  they  seem  to  sing, 

"  We  saw  you  a  little  toddling  thing, 

We  knew  you  child  and  youth  and  man, 

A  wonderful  fellow  to  dream  and  plan, 

With  a  great  thing  always  to  come,  —  who  knows  ? 

Well,  well  !  't  is  some  comfort  to  toast  one's  toes. 

"  How  many  times  have  you  sat  at  gaze 
Till  the  mouldering  fire  forgot  to  blaze, 


iv  TO  CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON. 

Shaping  among  the-  whimsical  coals 
Fancies  and  figures  and  shining  goals  ! 
What  matters  the  ashes  that  cover  those  ? 

While  hickory  lasts  you  can  toast  your  toes. 

i 

"  0  dream-ship-builder !  where  are  they  all, 
Your  grand  three-deckers,  deep-chested  and  tall, 
That  should  crush  the  waves  under  canvas  piles, 
And  anchor  at  last  by  the  Fortunate  Isles  ? 
There  's    gray    in    your    beard,    the    years    turn 

foes, 
While  you  muse  in  your  arm-chair  and  toast  your 

toes." 


I  sit  and  dream  that  I  hear,  as  of  yore, 

My  Elmwood  chimneys'  deep-throated  roar  ; 

If  much  be  gone,  there  is  much  remains  ; 

By  the  embers  of  loss  I  count  my  gains, 

You   and   yours  with  the  best,  till   the   old   hope 

glows 
In  the  fanciful  flame,  as  I  toast  my  toes. 


TO  CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON. 

Instead  of  a  fleet  of  broad-browed  ships, 

To  send  a  child's  armada  of  chips ! 

Instead  of  the  great  guns,  tier  on  tier, 

A  freight  of  pebbles  and  grass-blades  sere ! 

"  Well,  maybe  more  love  -with  the  less  gift  goes/ 

I  growl,  as,  half  moody,  I  toast  my  toes. 


[***  No  collection  of  the  author's  poems  has  been  made  since 
1848,  and  some  of  those  in  this  volume  date  back  even  farther 
than  that.  All  but  two  of  the  shortest  have  been  printed  before, 
either  wholly  or  in  part.  As  the  greater  number,  however,  were 
published  more  than  fifteen  years  ago,  they  will  have,  perhaps, 
something  of  novelty  to  most  readers.  A  few  pieces,  more  strictly 
comic,  have  been  omitted,  as  out  of  keeping;  and  "Fitz  Adam's 
Story,"  which  some  good  friends  will  miss,  is  also  left  to  stand 
over,  because  it  belongs  to  a  connected  series,  which,  it  is  hoped, 
may  be  completed  if  the  days  should  be  propitious.] 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

UNDER  THE  WILLOWS 9 

DARA 28 

FIRST   SNOW-FALL 32 

THE   SINGING  LEAVES 35 

SEA-WEED 41 

THE  FINDING  OF  THE  LYRE 43 

NEW-YEAR'S  EVE.    1850 45 

FOR  AN  AUTOGRAPH           ........  47 

LL  FRESCO    % 49 

MASACCIO 55 

WITHOUT   AND   WITHIN 58 

GODMINSTER  CHIMES 60 

THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS 63 

70 

AN  INVITATION 71 

THE  NOMADES 78 

SELF-STUDY 82 

PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE     .......  84 

THE  WIND-HARP 104 

AUF  WIEDERSEHEN! 107 

TX-KNODE 109 

AFTER  THE  BURIAL Ill 

THE  DEAD   HOUSE 114 

A  MOOD 117 


viii  CONTENTS. 


THE   VOYAGE  TO   VINLAND 120 

MAHMOOD   THE   IMAGE-BREAKER 135 

IS  VITA    MINERVA 138 

THE    FOUNTAIN  OF   YOUTH 141 

YUSSOUF 153 

THE   DARKENED   MIND 155 

WHAT  RABBI  JEHOSHA  SAID 157 

ALL-SAINTS *.  159 

A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN  TO  MY  FIRE 161 

FANCY'S  CASUISTRY 171 

TO  MR.  JOHN  BARTLETT 175 

ODE  TO  HAPPINESS 178 

^'ILLA  FRANCA 184 

THE  MINER 189 

GOLD  EGG:  A  DREAM-FANTASY 192 

A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND 201 

/AN  EMBER  PICTURE 211 

/TO  H.    W.    L 214 

-vtJHE   NIGHTINGALE   IN  THE   STUDY 216 

IN  THE   TWILIGHT 220 

XTHE    FOOT-PATH 224 

^POEMS   OF   THE   WAR. 

JTHE   WASHERS  OF  THE   SHROUD 231 

TWO   SCENES   FROM   THE   LIFE   OF   BLONDEL          .           .           .  238 

MEMORISE  POSITUM 245 

»ON  BOARD  THE  '76               .        .        .  .     .       .       .        .  250 

- X»ODE  RECITED  AT  THE  HARVARD  COMMEMORATION       .  254 

L'ENVOI.  —  TO  THE  MUSE    .        .        .       .       .       .       .        .  277 


UNDER    THE    WILLOWS. 

T7IRANK-HEARTED  hostess  of  the  field  and  wood, 

Gypsy,  whose  roof  is  every  spreading  tree, 
June  is  the  pearl  of  our  New  England  year. 
Still  a  surprisal,  though  expected  long, 
Her  coming  startles.     Long  she  lies  in  wait, 
Makes  many  a  feint,  peeps  forth,  draws  coyly  back, 
Then,  from  some  southern  ambush  in  the  sky, 
With  one  great  gush  of  blossom  storms  the  world. 
A  week  ago  the  sparrow  was  divine ; 
The  bluebird,  shifting  his  light  load  of  song 
From  post  to  post  along  the  cheerless  fence, 
Was  as  a  rhymer  ere  the  poet  come  ; 
But  now,  0  rapture  !  sunshine  winged  and  voiced, 
Pipe  blown  through  by  the  warm  wild  breath  of  the 

West 

Shepherding  his  soft  droves  of  fleecy  cloud, 
l* 


10  UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 

Gladness  of  woods,  skies,  waters,  all  in  one, 

The  bobolink  has  come,  and,  like  the  soul 

Of  the  sweet  season  vocal  in  a  bird, 

Gurgles  in  ecstasy  we  know  not  what 

Save  June!  Dear  June  !  Now  God  be  praised  for  June ! 

May  is  a  pious  fraud  of  the  almanac, 

A  ghastly  parody  of  real  Spring 

Shaped  out  of  snow  and  breathed  with  eastern  wind  ; 

Or  if,  o'er-confident,  she  trust  the  date, 

And,  with  her  handful  of  anemones, 

Herself  as  shivery,  steal  into  the  sun, 

The  season  need  but  turn  his  hourglass  round, 

And  Winter  suddenly,  like  crazy  Lear, 

Reels  back,  and  brings  the  dead  May  in  his  arms, 

Her  budding  breasts  and  wan  dislustred  front 

With  frosty  streaks  and  drifts  of  his  white  beard 

All  overblown.     Then,  warmly  walled  with  books, 

While  my  wood-fire  supplies  the  sun's  defect, 

Whispering  old  forest-sagas  in  its  dreams, 

I  take  my  May  down  from  the  happy  shelf 

Where  perch  the  world's  rare  song-birds  in  a  row, 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS.  11 

Waiting  my  choice  to  open  with  full  breast, 
And  beg  an  alms  of  spring-time,  ne'er  denied 
Indoors  by  vernal  Chaucer,  whose  fresh  woods 
Throb  thick  with  merle  arid  mavis  all  the  year. 

July  breathes  hot,  sallows  the  crispy  fields, 
Curls  up  the  wan  leaves  of  the  lilac-hedge, 
And  every  eve  cheats  us  with  show  of  clouds 
That  braze  the  horizon's  western  rim,  or  hang 
Motionless,  with  heaped  canvas  drooping  idly, 
Like  a  dim  fleet  by  starving  men  besieged, 
Conjectured  half,  arid  half  descried  afar, 
Helpless  of  wind,  and  seeming  to  slip  back 
Adown  the  smooth  curve  of  the  oily  sea. 

But  June  is  full  of  invitations  sweet, 

Forth   from   the   chimney's   yawn    arid   thrice-read 

tomes 

To  leisurely  delights  and  sauntering  thoughts 
fhat  brook  no  ceiling  narrower  than  the  blue. 
The  cherry,  drest  for  bridal,  at  my  pane 
Brushes,  then  listens,   Will  he  come?    The  bee, 


12  UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 

All  dusty  as  a  miller,  takes  his  toll 
Of  powdery  gold,  and  grumbles.     What  a  day 
To  sun  me  and  do  nothing!    Nay,  I  think 
Merely  to  bask  and  ripen  is  sometimes 
The  student's  wiser  business  ;  the  brain 
That  foniges  all  climes  to  line  its  cells, 
Ranging  both  worlds  on  lightest  wings  of  wish, 
Will  not  distil  the  juices  it  has  sucked 
To  the  sweet  substance  of  pellucid  thought, 
Except  for  him  who  hath  the  secret  learned 
To  mix  his  blood  with  sunshine,  and  to  take 
The  winds 'into  his  pulses.     Ilush !     'T  is  he! 
My  oriole,  my  glance  of  summer  fire, 
Is  come  at  last,  and,  ever  on  the  watch, 
Twitches  the  pack-thread  I  had  lightly  wound 
About  the  bough  to  help  his  housekeeping,  — 
Twitches  and  scouts  by  turns,  blessing  his  luck, 
Yet  fearing  me  who  laid  it  in  his  way, 
Nor,  more  than  wiser  we  in  our  affairs, 
Divines  the  providence  that  hides  and  helps. 
Heave,  ho!  Heave,  Iw!  he  whistles  as  the  twine 
Slackens  its  hold;  once  more,  now!  and  a  flash 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS.  13 

Lightens  across  the  sunlight  to  the  elm 
Where  his  mate  dangles  at  her  cup  of  felt. 
Nor  all  his  booty  is  the  thread ;  he  trails 
My  loosened  thought  with  it  along  the  air, 
And  I  must  follow,  would  I  ever  find 
The  inward  rhyme  to  all  this  wealth  of  life. 

1  care  not  how  men  trace  their  ancestry, 
To  ape  or  Adam  ;  let  them  please  their  whim  ; 
But  I  in  June  am  midway  to  believe 
A  tree  among  my  far  progenitors, 
Such  sympathy  is  mine  with  all  the  race, 
Such  mutual  recognition  vaguely  sweet 
There  is  between  us.     Surely  there  are  times 
When  they  consent  to  own  me  of  their  kin, 
And  condescend  to  me,  and  call  me  cousin, 
Murmuring  faint  lullabies  of  eldest  time, 
Forgotten,  and  yet  dumbly  felt  with  thrills 
Moving  the  lips,  though  fruitless  of  the  words. 
And  I  have  many  a  life-long  leafy  friend, 
Never  estranged  nor  careful  of  my  soul, 
That  knows  I  hate  the  axe,  and  welcomes  me 


14  UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 

Within  his  tent  as  if  I  were  a  bird, 
Or  other  free  companion  of  the  earth, 
Yet  undegenerate  to  the  shifts  of  men. 

Among  them  one,  an  ancient  willow,  spreads 

Eight  balanced  limbs,  springing  at  once  all  round 

His  deep-ridged  trunk  with  upward  slant  diverse, 

In  outline  like  enormous  beaker,  fit 

For  hand  of  Jotun,  where  ;mid  snow  and  mist 

He  holds  unwieldy  revel.     This  tree,  spared, 

I  know  not  by  what  grace,  —  for  in  the  blood 

Of  our  New  World  subduers  lingers  yet 

Hereditary  feud  with  trees,  they  being 

(They  and  the  red-man  most)  our  fathers'  foes,  — 

Is  one  of  six,  a  willow  Pleiades, 

The  seventh  fallen,  that  lean  along  the  brink 

Where  the  steep  upland  dips  into  the  rnarsh, 

Their  roots,  like  molten  metal  cooled  in  flowing, 

Stiffened  in  coils  and  runnels  down  the  bank. 

The  friend  of  all  the  winds,  wide-armed  he  towers 

And  glints  his  steely  aglets  in  the  sun, 

Or  whitens  fitfully  with  sudden  bloom 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS.  15 

Of  leaves  breeze-lifted,  much  as  when  a  shoal 
Of  devious  minnows  wheel  from  where  a  pike 
Lurks  balanced  'neath  the  lily-pads,  and  whirl 
A  rood  of  silver  bellies  to  the  day. 

Alas!  no  acorn  from  the  British  oak 

'Neath  which  slim   fairies  tripping  wrought  those 

rings 

Of  greenest  emerald,  wherewith  fireside  life 
Did  with  the  invisible  spirit  of  Nature  wed, 
Was  ever  planted  here  !     No  darnel  fancy 
Might  choke  one  useful  blade  in  Puritan  fields  ; 
With  horn  and  hoof  the  good  old  Devil  came, 
The  witch's  broomstick  was  not  contraband, 
But  all  that  superstition  had  of  fair, 
Or  piety  of  native  sweet,  was  doomed. 
And  if  there  be  who  nurse  unholy  faiths, 
Fearing  their  god  as  if  he  were  a  wolf 
That  snuffed  round  every  home  and  was  not  seen, 
There  should  be  some  to  watch  and  keep  alive 
All  beautiful  beliefs.     And  such  was  that,  — 
By  solitary  shepherd  first  surmised 


16  UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 

Under  Thossalian  oaks,  loved  by  some  maid 

Of  royal  stirp,  that  silent  came  and  vanished, 

As  near  her  nest  the  hermit  thrush,  nor  dared 

Confess  a  mortal  name,  —  that  faith  which  gave 

A  Hamadryad  to  each  tree ;  and  I 

Will  hold  it  true  that  in  this  willow  dwells 

The  open-handed  spirit,  frank  and  blithe, 

Of  ancient  Hospitality,  long  since, 

With  ceremonious  thrift,  bowed  out  of  doors. 

In  June  His  good  to  lie  beneath  a  tree 
While  the  blithe  season  comforts  every  sense, 
Steeps  all  the  brain  in  rest,  and  heals  the  heart, 
Brimming  it  o'er  with  sweetness  unawares, 
Fragrant  and  silent  as  that  rosy  snow 
Wherewith  the  pitying  apple-tree  fills  up 
And  tenderly  lines  some  last-year  robin's  nest. 
There  muse  I  of  old  times,  old  hopes,  old  friends,  — 
Old  friends  !    The  writing  of  those  words  has  borne 
My  fancy  backward  to  the  gracious  past, 
The  generous  past,  when  all  was  possible, 
For  all  was  then  untried ;  the  years  between 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS.  17 

Have  taught  some  sweet,  some  bitter  lessons,  none 

Wiser  than  this,  —  to  spend  in  all  things  else, 

But  of  old  friends  to  be  most  miserly. 

Each  year  to  ancient  friendships  adds  a  ring, 

As  to  an  oak,  and  precious  more  and  more, 

Without  deservingness  or  help  of  ours, 

They  grow,  andr  silent,  wider  spread,  each  year, 

Their  imbought  ring  of  shelter  or  of  shade. 

Sacred  to  me  the  lichens  on  the  bark, 

Which  Nature's  milliners  would  scrape  away  ; 

Most  dear  and  sacred  every  withered  limb  ! 

;T  is  good  to  set  them  early,  for  our  faith 

Pines  as  we  age,  and,  after  wrinkles  come, 

Few  plant,  but  water  dead  ones  with  vain  tears. 

This  willow  is  as  old  to  me  as  life ; 

And  under  it  full  often  have  I  stretched, 

Feeling  the  warm  earth  like  a  thing  alive, 

And  gathering  virtue  in  at  every  pore 

Till  it  possessed  me  wholly,  and  thought  ceased, 

Or  was  transfused  in  something  to  which  thought 

Is  coarse  and  dull  of  sense.     Myself  was  lost, 


18  UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 

Gone  from  me  like  an  ache,  and  what  remained 

Become  a  part  of  the  universal  joy. 

My  soul  went  forth,  and,  mingling  with  the  tree, 

Danced  in  the  leaves  ;  or,  floating  in  the  cloud, 

Saw  its  white  double  in  the  stream  below  ; 

Or  else,  sublimed  to  purer  ecstasy, 

Dilated  in  the  broad  blue  over  all. 

I  was  the  wind  that  dappled  the  lush  grass, 

The  tide  that  crept  with  coolness  to  its  roots, 

The  thin-winged  swallow  skating  on  the  air  ; 

The  life  that  gladdened  everything  was  mine. 

Was  I  then  truly  all  that  I  beheld  ? 

Or  is  this  stream  of  being  but  a  glass 

Where  the  mind  sees  its  visionary  self, 

As,  when  the  kingfisher  flits  o'er  his  bay, 

Across  the  river's  hollow  heaven  below 

His  picture  flits,  —  another,  yet  the  same  ? 

But  suddenly  the  sound  of  human  voice 

Or  footfall,  like  the  drop  a  chemist  pours, 

Doth  in  opacous  cloud  precipitate 

The  consciousness  that  seemed  but  now  dissolved 

Into  an  essence  rarer  than  its  own, 

And  I  am  narrowed  to  myself  once  more. 


UNDER  THE   WILLOWS.  19 

For  here  not  long  is  solitude  secure, 
Nor  Fantasy  left  vacant  to  her  spell. 
Here,  sometimes,  in  this  paradise  of  shado, 
Rippled  with  western  winds,  the   dusty  Tramp, 
Seeing  the  treeless  causey  burn  beyond, 
Halts  to  unroll  his  bundle  of  strange  food 
And  munch  an  unearned  meal.     I  cannot  help 
Liking  this  creature,  lavish  Summer's  bedesman, 
Who  from  the  almshouse  steals  when  nights  grow 

warm, 

Himself  his  large  estate  and  only  charge, 
To  be  the  guest  of  haystack  or  of  hedge, 
Nobly  superior  to  the  household  gear 
That  forfeits  us  our  privilege  of  nature. 
I  bait  him  with  my  match-box  and  my  pouch, 
Nor  grudge  the  uncostly  sympathy  of  smoke, 
His  equal  now,  divinely  unemployed. 
Some  smack  of  Robin  Hood  is  in  the  man, 
Some    secret    league    with    wild    wood-wandering 

things  ; 

He  is  our  ragged  Duke,  our  barefoot  Earl, 
By  right  of  birth  exonerate  from  toil, 


20  UNDER   THE  WILLOWS. 

Who  levies  rent  from  us  his  tenants  all, 

And  serves  the  state  by  merely  being.     Here 

The  Scissors-grinder,  pausing,  doffs  his  hat, 

And  lets  the  kind  breeze,  with  its  delicate  fan, 

Winnow  the  heat  from  out  his  dank  gray  hair, — 

A  grimy  Ulysses,  a  much-wandered  man, 

Whose  feet  are  known  to  all   the  populous  ways, 

And  many  men  and  manners  he  hath  seen, 

Not  without  fruit  of  solitary  thought. 

He,  as  the  habit  is  of  lonely  men,  — 

Unused  to  try  the  temper  of  their  mind 

In  fence  with  others,  —  positive  and  shy, 

Yet  knows  to  put  an  edge  upon  his  speech, 

Pithily  Saxon  in  unwilling  talk. 

Him  I  entrap  with  my  long-suffering  knife, 

And,  while  its  poor  blade  hums  away  in  sparks, 

Sharpen  my  wit  upon  his  gritty  mind, 

In  motion  set  obsequious  to  his  wheel, 

And  in  its  quality  not  much  unlike. 

Nor  wants  my  tree  more  punctual  visitors. 
The  children,  they  who  are  the  only  rich, 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS.  21 

Creating  for  the  moment,  and  possessing 
Whatever   they   choose   to   feign,  —  for   still   with 

them 

Kind  Fancy  plays  the  fairy  godmother, 
Strewing  their  lives  with  cheap  material 
For  winged  horses  and  Aladdin's  lamps, 
Pure  elfin-gold,  by  manhood's  touch  profane 
To  dead  leaves  disenchanted,  —  long  ago 
Between  the  branches  of  the  tree  fixed  seats, 
Making  an  o'erturned  box  their  table.     Oft 
The  shrilling  girls  sit  here  between  school  hours, 
And  play  at  WJiat  's  my  thought   like  ?  while  the 

boys, 

With  whom  the  age  chivalric  ever  bides, 
Pricked  on  by  knightly  spur  of  female  eyes, 
Climb  high  to  swing  and  shout  on  perilous  boughs, 
Or,  from  the  willow's  armory  equipped 
With  musket  dumb,  green  banner,  edgeless  sword, 
Make  good  the  rampart  of  their  tree-redoubt 
'Gainst  eager  British  storming  from  below, 
And  keep  alive  the  tale  of  Bunker's  Hill. 
Here,  too,  the  men  that  mend  our  village  ways, 


22  UNDER  TFIE   WILLOWS. 

Vexing  McAdam's  ghost  with  pounded  slate, 
Their  nooning  take  ;  much  noisy  talk  they  spend 
On  horses  and  their  ills  ;  and,  as  John  Bull 
Tells  of  Lord  This  or  That,  who  was  his  friend, 
So  these  make  boast  of  intimacies  long 
With  famous  teams,  and  add  large  estimates, 
By  competition  swelled  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
Of  how  much  they  could  draw,  till  one,  ill  pleased 
To  have  his  legend  overbid,  retorts  : 
"  You  take  and  stretch  truck-horses  in  a  string 
From  here  to  Long  Wharf  end,  one  thing  I  know, 
Not  heavy  neither,  they  could  never  draw,  — 
Ensign's  long  bow  !  "    Then  laughter  loud  and  long. 
So  they  in  their  leaf-shadowed  microcosm 
Image  the  larger  world ;  for  wheresoe'er 
Ten  men  are  gathered,  the  observant  eye 
Will  find  mankind  in  little,  as  the  stars 
Glide  up  and  set,  and  all  the  heavens  revolve 
In  the  small  welkin  of  a  drop  of  dew. 

I  love  to  enter  pleasure  by  a  postern, 

Not  the  broad  popular  gate  that  gulps  the  mob  ; 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS.  23 

To  find  my  theatres  in  roadside  nooks, 
Where  men  are  actors,  and  suspect  it  not ; 
Where  Nature  all  unconscious  works  her  will, 
And  every  passion  moves  with  human  gait, 
Unhampered  by  the  buskin  or  the  train. 
Hating  the  crowd,  where  we  gregarious  men 
Lead  lonely  lives,  I  love  society, 
Nor  seldom  find  the  best  with  simple  souls 
Unswerved  by  culture  from  their  native  bent, 
The  ground  we  meet  on  being  primal  man 
And  nearer  the  deep  bases  of  our  lives. 

But  0,  half  heavenly,  earthly  half,  my  soul, 
Canst  thou  from  those  late  ecstasies  descend, 
Thy  lips  still  wet  with  the  miraculous  wine 
That  transubstantiates  all  thy  baser  stuff 
To  such  divinity  that  soul  and  sense, 
Once  more  commingled  in  their  source,  are  lost,  — 
Canst  thou  descend  to  quench  a  vulgar  thirst 
With  the  mere  dregs  and  rinsings  of  the  world  ? 
Well,  if  my  nature  find  her  pleasure  so, 
I  am  content,  nor  need  to  blush ;   I  take 


24  UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 

My  little  gift  of  being  clean  from  God, 
Not  haggling  for  a  better,  holding  it 
Good  as  was  ever  any  in  the  world, 
My  days  as  good  and  full  of  miracle. 
I  pluck  my  nutriment  from  any  bush, 
Finding  out  poison  as  the  first  men  did 
By  tasting  and  then  suffering,  if  I  must. 
Sometimes  my  bush  burns,  and  sometimes  it  is 
A  leafless  wilding  shivering  by  the  wall ; 
But  I  have  known  when  winter  barberries 
Pricked  the  effeminate  palate  with  surprise 
Of  savor  whose  mere  harshness  seemed  divine. 

0,  benediction  of  the  higher  mood 
And  human-kindness  of  the  lower !  for  both 
I  will  be  grateful  while  I  live,  nor  question 
The  wisdom  that  hath  made  us  what  we  are, 
With  such  large  range  as  from  the  alehouse  bench 

Can  reach  the  stars  and  be  with  both  at  home. 

• 

They  tell  us  we  have  fallen  on  prosy  days, 
Condemned  to  glean  the  leavings  of  earth's  feast 
Where  gods  and  heroes  took  delight  of  old  ; 


UNDER   THE   WILLOWS.  25 

But  though  our  lives,  moving  in  one  dull  round 

Of  repetition  infinite,  become 

Stale  as  a  newspaper  once  read,  and  though 

History  herself,  seen  in  her  workshop,  seem 

To  have  lost  the  art  that  dyed  those  glorious  panes, 

Rich  with  memorial  shapes  of  saint  and  sage, 

That  pave  with  splendor  the  Past's  dusky  aisles,  — 

Panes  that  enchant  the  light  of  common  day 

With  colors  costly  as  the  blood  of  kings, 

Until  it  edge  our  thought  with  hues  ideal,  — 

Yet  while  the  world  is  left,  while  nature  lasts 

And  man  the  best  of  nature,  there  shall  be 

Somewhere  contentment  for  these  human  hearts, 

Some  freshness,  some  unused  material 

For  wonder  and  for  song.     I  lose  myself 

In  other  ways  where  solemn  guide-posts  say, 

This  way  to  Knowledge,   This  way  to  Repose, 

But  here,  here  only,  I  am  ne'er  betrayed, 

For  every  by-path  leads  me  to  my  love. 

God's  passionless  reformers,  influences, 
That  purify  and  heal  and  are  not  seen, 
2 


26  UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 

Shall  man  say  whence  your  virtue  is,  or  how 
Ye  make  medicinal  the  wayside  weed  ? 
I  know  that  sunshine,  through  whatever  rift, 
How  shaped  it  matters  not,  upon  my  walls 
Paints  discs  as  perfect-rounded  as  its  source, 
And,  like  its  antitype,  the  ray  divine, 
However  finding  entrance,  perfect  still, 
Repeats  the  image  unimpaired  of  God. 

We,  who  by  shipwreck  only  find  the  shores 
Of  divine  wisdom,  can  but  kneel  at  first ; 
Can  but  exult  to  feel  beneath  our  feet, 
That  long  stretched  vainly  down  the  yielding  deeps, 
The  shock  and  sustenance  of  solid  earth  ; 
Inland  afar  we  see  what  temples  gleam 
Through  immemorial  stems  of  sacred  groves, 
And  we  conjecture  shining  shapes  therein  ; 
Yet  for  a  space  we  love  to  wonder  here 
Among  the  shells  and  sea-weed  of  the  beach. 

So  mused  I  once  within  my  willow-tent 

One  brave  June  morning,  when  the  bluff  northwest, 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS.  27 

Thrusting  aside  a  dank  and  snuffling  day 
That  made  us  bitter  at  our  neighbors'  sins, 
Brimmed  the  great  cup  of  heaven  with  sparkling 

cheer 

And  roared  a  lusty  stave  ;  the  sliding  Charles, 
Blue  toward  the  west,  and  bluer  and  more  blue, 
Living  and  lustrous  as  a  woman's  eyes 
Look  once  and  look  no  more,  with  southward  curve 
Ran  crinkling  sunniness,  like  Helen's  hair 
Glimpsed  in  Elysium,  insubstantial  gold ; 
From  blossom-clouded  orchards,  far  away 
The  bobolink  tinkled ;  the  deep  meadows  flowed 
With  multitudinous  pulse  of  light  and  shade. 
Against  the  bases  of  the  southern  hills, 
While  here  and  there  a  drowsy  island  rick 
Slept  and  its  shadow  slept ;  the  wooden  bridge 
Thundered,  and  then  was  silent ;  on  the  roofs 
The  sun-warped  shingles  rippled  with  the  heat  ; 
Summer  on  field  and  hill,  in  heart  and  brain, 
All  life  washed  clean  in  this  high  tide  of  June- 


28  DARA. 


DARA. 

"\\7  HEN  Persia's  sceptre  trembled  in  a  hand 
"  *    Wilted  with  harem-heats,  and  all  the  land 
Was  hovered  over  by  those  vulture  ills 
That  snuff  decaying  empire  from  afar, 
Then,  with  a  nature  balanced  as  a  star, 
Dara  arose,  a  shepherd  of  the  hills. 

He  who  had  governed  fleecy  subjects  well 

Made  his  own  village  by  the  selfsame  spell 

Secure  and  quiet  as  a  guarded  fold  ; 

Then,  gathering  strength  by  slow  and  wise  degrees 

Under  his  sway,  to  neighbor  villages 

Order  returned,  and  faith,  and  justice  old. 

Now  when  it  fortuned  that  a  king  more  wise 
Endued  the  realm  with  brain  and  hands  and  eyes, 


DARA.  29 

He  sought  on  every  side  men  brave  and  just ; 
And  having  heard  our  mountain  shepherd's  praise, 
How  he  refilled  the  mould  of  elder  days, 
To  Dara  gave  a  satrapy  in  trust. 

So  Dara  shepherded  a  province  wide, 
Nor  in  his  viceroy's  sceptre  took  more  pride 
Than  in  his  crook  before  ;  but  envy  finds 
More  food  in  cities  than  on  mountains  bare  ; 
And  the  frank  sun  of  natures  clear  and  rare 
Breeds  poisonous  fogs  in  low  and  marish  minds. 

Soon  it  was  hissed  into  the  royal  ear, 

That,  though  wise  Dara's  province,  year  by  year, 

Like   a   great   sponge,   sucked  wealth  and  plenty 

up, 

Yet,  when  he  squeezed  it  at  the  king's  behest, 
Some  yellow  drops,  more  rich  than  all  the  rest, 
Went  to  the  filling  of  his  private  cup. 

For  proof,  they  said,  that,  wheresoe'er  he  went, 
A  chest,  beneath  whose  weight  the  camel  bent, 


30  DARA. 

Went  with  him  ;  and  no  mortal  eye  had  seen 
What  was  therein,  save  only  Dara's  own  ; 
But,  when  ;t  was  opened,  all  his  tent  was  known 
To  glow  and  lighten  with  heaped  jewels'  sheen. 

The  King  set  forth  for  Dara's  province  straight ; 
There,  as  was  fit,  outside  the  city's  gate, 
The  viceroy  met  him  with  a  stately  train, 
And  there,  with  archers  circled,  close  at  hand, 
A  camel  with  the  chest  was  seen  to  stand  : 
The  King's  brow  reddened,  for  the  guilt  was  plain. 

"  Open  me  here,"  he  cried,  "  this  treasure-chest! " 
;T  was  done  ;  and  only  a  worn  shepherd's  vest 
Was  found  therein.     Some  blushed  and  hung  the 

head  ; 

Not  Dara  ;  open  as  the  sky's  blue  roof 
lie  stood,  and  "  0   my  lord,  behold  the  proof 
That  I  was  faithful  to  my  trust,"  he  said. 

"  To  govern  men,  lo  all  the  spell  I  had  ! 
My  soul  in  these  rude  vestments  ever  clad 


DARA.  31 

Still  to  the  unstained  past  kept  true  and  leal, 
Still  on  these  plains  could  breathe  her  mountain  air, 
And  fortune's  heaviest  gifts  serenely  bear, 
Which  bend  men  from  their  truth  and  make  them 
reel. 

"  For  ruling  wisely  I  should  have  small  skill, 
Were  I  not  lord  of  simple  Dara  still ; 
That  sceptre  kept,  I  could  not  lose  my  way." 
Strange  dew  in  royal  eyes  grew  round  and  bright, 
And  strained  the  throbbing  lids ;  before  't  was  night 
Two  added  provinces  blest  Dara's  sway. 


32  THE  FIRST  SNOW-FALL. 


THE   FIRST   SNOW-FALL. 

rilUE  snow  had  begun  in  the  gloaming, 
-•-    And  busily  all  the  night 
Had  been  heaping  field  and  highway 
With  a  silence  deep  and  white. 

Every  pine  and  fir  and  hemlock 
Wore  ermine  too  dear  for  an  earl, 

And  the  poorest  twig  on  the  elm-tree 
Was  ridged  inch  deep  with  pearl. 

From  sh'eds  new-roofed  with  Carrara 
Came  Chanticleer's  muffled  crow, 

The  stiff  rails  were  softened  to  swan's-down, 
And  still  fluttered  down  the  snow. 

I  stood  and  watched  by  the  window 
The  noiseless  work  of  the  sky, 


THE  FIRST  SNOW-FALL.  33 

And  the  sudden  flurries  of  snow-birds, 
Like  brown  leaves  whirling  by. 

I  thought  of  a  mound  in  sweet  Auburn 

Where  a  little  headstone  stood ; 
How  the  flakes  were  folding  it  gently, 

As  did  robins  the  babes  in  the  wood. 

Up  spoke  our  own  little  Mabel, 

Saying,  "  Father,  who  makes  it  snow  ?  " 

And  I  told  of  the  good  All-father 
Who  cares  for  us  here  below. 

Again  I  looked  at  the  snow-fall, 

And  thought  of  the  leaden  sky 
That  arched  o'er  our  first  great  sorrow, 

When  that  mound  was  heaped  so  high. 

1  remembered  the  gradual  patience 
That  fell  from  that  cloud  like  snow, 

Flake  by  flake,  healing  and  hiding 
The  scar  of  our  deep-plunged  woe. 

2*  C 


34  THE  FIRST  SNOW-FALL. 

And  again  to  the  child  I  whispered, 

"  The  snow  that  husheth  all, 
Darling,  the  merciful  Father 

Alone  can  make  it  fall  !  " 

Then,  with  eyes  that  saw  not,  I  kissed  her  ; 

And  she,  kissing  back,  could  not  know 
That  my  kiss  was  given  to  her  sister, 

Folded  close  under  deepening  snow. 


THE  SINGING  LEAVES.  35 


THE   SINGING  LEAVES. 

A    BALLAD. 
I. 

""ITTIIAT  fairings  will  ye  that  I  bring?" 

Said  the  King  to  his  daughters  three  ; 
4i  For  I  to  Vanity  Fair  am  boun, 
Now  say,  what  shall  they  be  ?  " 

Then  up  and  spake  the  eldest  daughter, 

That  lady  tall  and  grand  : 
"  0,  bring  me  pearls  and  diamonds  great, 

And  gold  rings  for  my  hand." 

Thereafter  spake  the  second  daughter, 

That  was  both  white  and  red  : 
"  For  me  bring  silks  that  will  stand  alone, 

And  a  gold  comb  for  my  head." 

Then  came  the  turn  of  the  least  daughter, 
That  was  whiter  than  thistle-down, 


36  THE  SINGING   LEAVES. 

And  among  the  gold  of  her  blithesome  hair 
Dim  shone  the  golden  crown. 

"  There  came  a  bird  this  morning, 
And  sang  'neath  my  bower  eaves, 

Till  I  dreamed,  as  his  music  made  me, 
'  Ask  thou  for  the  Singing  Leaves.'  ' 

Then  the  brow  of  the  King  swelled  crimson 

With  a  flush  of  angry  scorn : 
"  Well  have  ye  spoken,  my  two  eldest, 

And  chosen  as  ye  were  born  ; 

"  But  she  like  a  thing  of  peasant  race, 
That  is  happy  binding  the  sheaves "  ; 

Then  he  saw  her  dead  mother  in  her  face, 
And  said,  "  Thou  shalt  have  thy  leaves." 


THE  SINGING  LEAVES.  37 


II. 


He  mounted  and  rode  three  days  and  nights 

Till  he  came  to  Vanity  Fair, 
Arid  't  was  easy  to  buy  the  gems  and  the  silk, 

But  no  Singing  Leaves  were  there. 

Then  deep  in  the  greenwood  rode  he, 

And  asked  of  every  tree, 
"0,  if  you  have  ever  a  Singing  Leaf, 

I  pray  you  to  give  it  me ! " 

But  the  trees  all  kept  their  counsel, 

And  never  a  word  said  they, 
Only  there  sighed  from  the  pine-tops 

A  music  of  seas  far  away. 

Only  the  pattering  aspen 

Made  a  sound  of  growing  rain, 
That  fell  ever  faster  and  faster, 

Then  faltered  to  silence  again. 


38  THE  SINGING  LEAVES. 

"  0,  where  shall  I  find  a  little  foot-page 
That  would  win  both  hose  and  shoon, 

And  will  bring  to  me  the  Singing  Leaves 
If  they  grow  under  the  moon  ?  " 

Then  lightly  turned  him  Walter  the  page, 

By  the  stirrup  as  he  ran  : 
"  Now  pledge  ye  me  the  truesome  word 

Of  a  king  and  gentleman, 

"  That  you  will  give  me  the  first,  first  thing 

You  meet  at  your  castle-gate, 
And  the  Princess  shall  get  the  Singing  Leaves, 

Or  mine  be  a  traitor's  fate.'7 

The  King's  head  dropt  upon  his  breast 

A  moment,  as  it  might  be  ; 
;T  will  be  my  dog,  he  thought,  and  said, 

"My  faith  I  plight  to  thee." 

Then  Walter  took  from  next  hig  heart 

A  packet  small  and  thin, 
"  Now  give  you  this  to  the  Princess  Anne, 

The  Singing  Leaves  are  therein." 


THE  SINGING  LEAVES.  39 


III. 


As  the  King  rode  in  at  his  castle  gate, 

A  maiden  to  meet  him  ran, 
And  "Welcome,  father!"  she  laughed  and  cried 

Together,  the  Princess  Anne. 

"  Lo,  here  the  Singing  Leaves,"  quoth  he, 
"  And  woe,  but  they  cost  me  dear ! " 

She  took  the  packet,  and  the  smile 
Deepened  down  beneath  the  tear. 

It  deepened  down  till  it  reached  her  heart, 

And  then  gushed  up  again, 
And  lighted  her  tears  as  the  sudden  sun 

Transfigures  the  summer  rain. 

And  the  first  Leaf,  when  it  was  opened, 

Sang:  "  I  am  Walter  the  page, 
And  the  songs  I  sing  'neath  thy  window 

Are  my  only  heritage." 


40  THE  SINGING  LEAVES. 

And  the  second  Leaf  sang :  "  But  in  the  land 

That  is  neither  on  earth  or  sea, 
My  lute  and  I  are  lords  of  more 

Than  thrice  this  kingdom's  fee." 

And  the  third  Leaf  sang,  "  Be  mine  !  Be  mine  !  " 

And  ever  it  sang,  "  Be  mine  !  " 
Then  sweeter  it  sang  and  ever  sweeter, 

And  said,  "I  am  thine,  thine,  thine!" 

At  the  first  Leaf  she  grew  pale  enough, 
At  the  second  she  turned  aside,- 

At  the  third,  'twas  as  if  a  lily  flushed 
With  a  rose's  red  heart's  tide. 

"  Good  counsel  gave  the  bird,"  said  she, 

"  I  have  my  hope  thrice  o'er, 
For  they  sing  to  my  very  heart,"  she  said, 

"  And  it  sings  to  them  evermore." 

She  brought  to  him  her  beauty  and  truth, 

But  and  broad  earldoms  three, 
And  he  made  her  queen  of  the  broader  lands 

He  held  of  his  lute  in  fee. 


41 


SE 


T  always  unimpeded  can  I  pray, 
Nor,  pitying  saint,  thine  intercession  claim  ; 
Too  closely  clings  the  burden  of  the  day, 
And  all  the  mint  and  anise  that  I  pay 
But  swells  my  debt  and  deepens  my  self-blame. 

Shall  I  less  patience  have  than  Thou,  who  know 
That  Thou  re  visit' st  all  who  wait  for  thee, 
Nor  only  filPst  the  unsounded  deeps  below, 
But  dost  refresh  with  punctual  overflow 
The  rifts  where  unregarded  mosses  be  ?  • 

The  drooping  sea-weed  hears,  in  night  abyssed, 
Far  and  more  far  the  wave's  receding  shocks, 
Nor  doubts,  for  all  the  darkness  and  the  mist, 
That  the  pale  shepherdess  will  keep  her  tryst, 
And  shoreward  lead  again  her  foam-fleeced  flocks. 


42  SEA-WEED. 

For  the  same  wave  that  rims  the  Carib  shore 
With  momentary  brede  of  pearl  and  gold, 
Goes  hurrying  thence  to  gladden  with  its  roar 
Lorn  weeds  bound  fast  on  rocks  of  Labrador, 
By  love  divine  on  one  sweet  errand  rolled. 

And,  though  Thy  healing  waters  far  withdraw, 
I,  too,  can  wait  and  feed  on  hope  of  Thee 
And  of  the  dear  recurrence  of  Thy  law, 
Sure  that  the  parting  grace  that  morning  saw 
Abides  its  time  to  come  in  search  of  me. 


THE  FINDING  OF  THE   LYRE.  43 

X. 


THE   FINDING   OF   THE  LYRE. 

rilHERE  lay  upon  the  ocean's  shore 
-•-    What  once  a  tortoise  served  to  cover. 
A  year  and  more,  with  rush  and  roar, 
The  surf  had  rolled  it  over, 
Had  played  with  it,  and  flung  it  by, 
As  wind  and  weather  might  decide  it, 
Then  tossed  it  high  where  sand-drifts  dry 
Cheap  burial  might  provide  it. 

It  rested  there  to  bleach  or  tan, 

The  rains  had  soaked,  the  suns  had  burned  it ; 

With  many  a  ban  the  fisherman 

Had  stumbled  o'er  and  spurned  it ; 

And  there  the  fisher-girl  would  stay, 

Conjecturing  with  her  brother 

How  in  their  play  the  poor  estray 

Might  serve  some  use  or  other. 


44  THE   FINDING   OF  THE  LYRE. 

* 

So  there  it  lay,  through  wet  and  dry, 

As  empty  as  the  last  new  sonnet, 

Till  by  and  by  came  Mercury, 

And,  having  mused  upon  it, 

"  Why,  here,"  cried  he,  "  the  thing  of  things 

In  shape,  material,  and  dimension  ! 

Give  it  but  strings,  and,  lo,  it  sings,' 

A  wonderful  invention  !  " 

So  said,  so  done  ;  the  chords  he  strained, 
And,  as  his  fingers  o'er  them  hovered, 
The  shell  disdained  a  soul  had  gained, 
The  lyre  had  been  discovered. 
0  empty  world  that  round  us  lies, 
Dead  shell,  of  soul  and  thought  forsaken, 
Brought  we  but  eyes  like  Mercury's, 
In  thee  what  songs  should  waken! 


NEW-YEAR'S  EVE.  45 


NEW-YEAR'S   EVE.     1850. 

fTlHIS  is  the  midnight  of  the  century,  —  hark  ! 
Through  aisle  and  arch  of  Godminster  have 

gone 

Twelve  throbs  that  tolled  the  zenith  of  the  dark, 
And  mornward  now  the  starry  hands  move  on  ; 
"  Mornward  !  "   the  angelic  watchers  say, 
"  Passed  is  the  sorest  trial  ; 
No  plot  of  man  can  stay 
The  hand  upon  the  dial  ; 
Night  is  the  dark  stem  of  the  lily  Day." 

If  we,  who  watched  in  valleys  here  below, 
Toward    streaks,    misdeemed    of  morn,   our    faces 

turned 

When  volcan  glares  set  all  the  east  aglow,  — 
We  are  not  poorer  that  we  wept  and  yearned  ; 


46  NEW-YEAR'S  EVE. 

Though  earth  swing  wide  from  God's  intent, 

And  though  no  man  nor  nation 

Will  move  with  full  consent 

In  heavenly  gravitation, 

Yet  by  one  Sun  is  every  orbit-  bent. 


FOB  AN  AUTOGRAPH.  47 


FOR   AN   AUTOGRAPH. 

HP  HOUGH  old  the  thought  and  oft  exprest, 

'T  is  his  at  last  who  says  it  best,  — 
I  '11  try  my  fortune  with  the  rest. 

Life  is  a  leaf  of  paper  white 
Whereon  each  one  of  us  may  write 
His  word  or  two,  and  then  comes  night. 

"  Lo,  time  and  space  enough/'  we  cry, 
"To  write  an  epic!"    so  we  try 
Our  nibs  upon  the  edge,  and  die. 

Muse  not  which  way  the  pen  to  hold, 
Luck  hates  the  slow  and  loves  the  bold, 
Soon  come  the  darkness  and  the  cold. 


48  FOR  AN  AUTOGRAPH. 

Greatly  begin !   though  thou  have  time 
But  for  a  line,  be  that  sublime,  — 
Not  failure,  but  low  aim,  is  crime. 

Ah,  with  what  lofty  hope  we  came  I 
But  we  forget  it,  dream  of  fame, 
And  scrawl,  as  I  do  here,  a  name. 


AL   FRESCO.  49 


AL    FRESCO. 

FT1HE  dandelions  and  buttercups 
-*-    Gild  all  the  lawn  ;    the  drowsy  bee 
Stumbles  among  the  clover-tops, 
And  summer  sweetens  all  but  me  : 
Away,  unfruitful  lore  of  books, 
For  whose  vain  idiom  we  reject 
The  soul's  more  native  dialect, 
Aliens  among  the  birds  and  brooks, 
Dull  to  interpret  or  conceive 
What  gospels  lost  the  woods  retrieve ! 
Away,  ye  critics,  city-bred, 
Who  set  man-traps  of  thus  and  so, 
And  in  the  first  man's  footsteps  tread, 
Like  those  who  toil  through  drifted  snow 
Away,  my  poets,  whose  sweet  spell 
Can  make  a  garden  of  a  cell ! 

3  9 


50  AL  FRESCO. 

I  need  ye  not,  for  I  to-day 

Will  make  one  long  sweet  verse  of  play. 

.    Snap,  chord  of  manhood's  tenser  strain ! 

To-day  I  will  be  a  boy  again  ; 

The  mind's  pursuing  element, 

Like  a  bow  slackened  and  unbent, 

"In  some  dark  corner  shall  be  leant. 

The  robin  sings,  as  of  old,  from  the  limb ! 

The  cat-bird  croons  in  the  lilac-bush ; 

Through  the  dim  arbor,  himself  more  dim, 

Silently  hops  the  hermit-thrush, 

The  withered  leaves  keep  dumb  for  him  ; 

The  irreverent  buccaneering  bee 

Hath  stormed  and  rifled  the  nunnery 

Of  the  lily,  and  scattered  the  sacred  floor 

Witfi  haste-dropt  gold  from  shrine  to  door 

There,  as  of  yore, 

The  rich,  milk-tingeing  buttercup 

Its  tiny  polished  urn  holds  up, 

Filled  with  ripe  summer  to  the  edge, 

The  sun  in  his  own  wine  to  pledge  ; 


AL  FRESCO.  51 

And  our  tall  elm,  this  hundredth  year 
Doge  of  our  leafy  Venice  here, 
Who,  with  an  annual  ring,  doth  wed 
The  blue  Adriatic  overhead, 
Shadows  with  his  palatial  mass 
The  deep  canals  of  flowing  grass. 

0  unestranged  birds  and  bees! 
0  face  of  nature  always  true  ! 
0  never-unsympathizing  trees  ! 
0  never-rejecting  roof  of  blue, 
Whose  rash  disherison  never  falls 
On  us  unthinking  prodigals, 
Yet  who  convictest  all  our  ill, 
So  grand  and  unappeasable  ! 
Methinks  my  heart  from  each  of  these 
Plucks  part  of  childhood  back  again, 
Long  there  imprisoned,  as  the  breeze 
Doth  every  hidden  odor  seize 
Of  wood  and  water,  hill- and  plain. 
Once  more  am  I  admitted  peer 
In  the  upper  house  of  Nature  here, 


52  AL   FRESCO. 

And  feel  through  all  my  pulses  run 
The  royal  blood  of  breeze  and  sun. 

Upon  these  elm-arched  solitudes 
No  hum  of  neighbor  toil  intrudes  ; 
The  only  hammer  that  I  hear 
Is  wielded  by  the  woodpecker, 
The  single  noisy  calling  his 
In  all  our  leaf-hid  Sybaris  ; 
The  good  old  time,  close-hidden  here, 
Persists,  a  loyal  cavalier, 
While  Roundheads  prim,  with  point  of  fox, 
Probe  wainscot-chink  and  empty  box  ; 
Here  no  hoarse-voiced  iconoclast 
Insults  thy  statues,  royal  Past ; 
Myself  too  prone  the  axe  to  wield, 
I  touch  the  silver  side  of  the  shield 
With  lance  reversed,  and  challenge  peace< 
A  willing  convert  of  the  trees. 

How  chanced  it  that  so  long  I  tost 
A  cable's  length  from  this  rich  coast, 


AL  FRESCO.  53 

With  foolish  anchors  hugging  close 
The  beckoning  weeds  and  lazy  ooze, 
Nor  had  the  wit  to  wreck  before 
On  this  enchanted  island's  shore, 
Whither  the  current  of  the  sea, 
With  wiser  drift,  persuaded  me  ? 

0,  might  we  but  of  such  rare  days 
Build  up  the  spirit's,  dwelling-place  ! 
A  temple  of  so  Parian  stone 
Would  brook  a  marble  god  alone, 
The  statue  of  a  perfect  life, 
Far-shrined  from  earth's  bestaining  strife, 
Alas!  though  such  felicity 
In  our  vext  world  here  may  not  be, 
Yet,  as  sometimes  the  peasant's  hut 
Shows  stones  which  old  religion  cut 
With  text  inspired,  or  mystic  sign 
Of  the  Eternal  and  Divine, 
Torn  from  the  consecration  deep 
Of  some  fallen  nunnery's  mossy  sleep, 
So,  from  the  ruins  of  this  day 


34  AL   FRESCO. 

Crumbling  in  goldeii  dust  away, 

The  soul  one  gracious  block  may  draw, 

Carved  with  some  fragment  of  the  law, 

Which,  set  in  life's  uneven  wall, 

Old  benedictions  may  recall, 

And  lure  some  nunlike  thoughts  to  take 

Their  dwelling  here  for  memory's  sake. 


MASACCIO.  55 


MASACCIO. 

(IN  THE  BRANCACCI  CHAPEL.) 

|~E  came  to  Florence  long  ago, 

And  painted  here  these  walls,  that  shone 
For  Raphael  and  for  Angelo, 
With  secrets  deeper  than  his  own, 
Then  shrank  into  the  dark  again, 
And  died,  we  know  not  how  or  when. 

The  shadows  deepened,  and  I  turned 

Half  sadly  from  the  fresco  grand  ; 

"  And  is  this,"  mused  I,  "all  ye  earned, 

High-vaulted  brain  and  cunning  hand, 

That  ye  to  greater  men  could  teach 

The  skill  yourselves  could  never  reach  ?  " 

"And  who  were  they,"  I  mused,  "that  wrought 
Through  pathless  wilds,  with  labor  long, 


56  MASACCIO. 

The  highways  of  our  daily  thought  ? 
Who  reared  those  towers  of  earliest  song 
That  lift  us  from  the  throng  to  peace 
Remote  in  sunny  silences  ?  " 

Out  clanged  the  Ave  Mary  bells, 
And  to  my  heart  this  message  came  : 
Each  clamorous  throat  among  them  tells 
What  strong-souled  martyrs  died  in  flame 
To  make  it  possible  that  thou 
Shouldst  here  with  brother  sinners  bow. 

Thoughts  that  great  hearts  once  broke  for,  we 
Breathe  cheaply  in  the  common  air  ; 
The  dust  we  trample  heedlessly 
Throbbed  once  in  saints  and  heroes  rare, 
Who  perished,  opening  for  their  race 
New  pathways  to  the  commonplace. 

Henceforth,  when  rings  the  health  to  those 
Who  live  in  story  and  in  song, 


MASACCIO.  57 

0  nameless  dead,  who  now  repose 
Safe  in  Oblivion's  chambers  strong, 
One  cup  of  recognition  true 
Shall  silently  be  drained  to  you ! 


3* 


58  WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN. 


WITHOUT   AND   WITHIN. 

coachman,  in  the  moonlight  there, 
Looks  through  the  side-light  of  the  door  ; 
I  hear  him  with  his  brethren  swear, 
As  1  could  do,  —  but  only  more. 

Flattening  his  nose  against  the  pane, 

He  envies  me  my  brilliant  lot, 
Breathes  on  his  aching  fists  in  vain, 

And  dooms  me  to  a  place  more  hot. 

He  sees  me  in  to  supper  go, 

A  silken  wonder  by  my  side, 
Bare  arms,  bare  shoulders,  and  a  row 

Of  flounces,  for  the  door  too  wide. 

He  thinks  how  happy  is  my  arm 
•  'Neath  its  white-gloved  and  jewelted  load  ; 


WITHOUT   AND  WITHIN.  59 

And  wishes  me  some  dreadful  harm, 
Hearing  the  merry  corks  explode. 

Meanwhile  I  inly  curse  the  bore 
Of  hunting  still  the  same  old  coon, 

And  envy  him,  outside  the  door, 
In  golden  quiets  of  the  moon. 

The  winter  wind  is  not  so  cold 

As  the  bright  smile  he  sees  me  win, 

Nor  the  host's  oldest  wine  so  old 
As  our  poor  gabble  sour  and  thin. 

I  envy  him  the  ungyved  prance 

By  which  his  freezing  feet  he  warms, 

And  drag  my  lady's-chains  and  dance 
The  galley-slave  of  dreary  forms. 

0,  could  he  have  my  share  of  diri, 
And  I  his  quiet !  —  past  a  doubt 

'T  would  still  be  one  man  bored  within, 
And  just  another  bored  without. 


60  GODMINSTEB   CHIMES. 


GODMINSTER    CHIMES. 

WRITTEN  IN  AID  OF  A  CHIME  OF  BELLS  FOR  CHRIST  CHURCH, 
CAMBRIDGE. 


ODMINSTEK  ?    Is  it  Fancy's  play  ? 

I  know  not,  but  the  word 
Sings  in  my  heart,  nor  can  I  say 

Whether  't  was  dreamed  or  heard  ; 
Yet  fragrant  in  my  mind  it  clings 

As  blossoms  after  rain, 
And  builds  of  half-remembered  things 
This  vision  in  my  brain. 

Through  aisles  of  long-drawn  centuries 
My  spirit  walks  in  thought, 

And  to  that  symbol  lifts  its  eyes 
Which  God's  own  pity  wrought  ; 

From  Calvary  shines  the  altar's  gleam, 
The  Church's  East  is  there, 


GODMINSTER   CHIMES.  61 

The  Ages  one  great  minster  seem, 
That  throbs  with  praise  and  prayer. 

And  all  the  way  from  Calvary  down 

The  carven  pavement  shows 
Their  graves  who  won  the  martyr's  crown 

And  safe  in  God  repose  ; 
The  saints  of  many  a  warring  creed 

Who  now  in  heaven  have  learned 
That  all  paths  to  the  Father  lead 

Where  Self  the  feet  have  spurned. 

And,  as  the  mystic  aisles  I  pace, 

By  aureoled  workmen  built, 
Lives  ending  at  the  Cross  I  trace 

Alike  through  grace  and  guilt ; 
One  Mary  bathes  the  blessed  feet 

With  ointment  from  her  eyes, 
With  spikenard  one,  and  both  are  sweet, 

For  both  are  sacrifice. 

Moravian  hymn  and  Roman  chant 
In  one  devotion  blend, 


62  GODMINSTER  CHIMES. 

To  speak  the  soul's  eternal  want 

Of  Him,  the  inmost  friend ; 
One  prayer  soars  cleansed  with  martyr  fire, 

One  choked  with  sinner's  tears, 
In  heaven  both  meet  in  one  desire, 

And  God  one  music  hears. 

Whilst  thus  I  dream,  the  bells  clash  out 

Upon  the  Sabbath  air, 
Each  seems  a  hostile  faith  to  shout, 

A  selfish  form  of  prayer  ; 
My  dream  is  shattered,  yet  who  knows 

But  in  that  heaven  so  near 
These  discords  find  harmonious  close 

In  God's  atoning  ear? 

0  chime  of  sweet  Saint  Charity, 

Peal  soon  that  Easter  morn 
When  Christ  for  all  shall  risen  be, 

And  in  all  hearts  new-born ! 
That  Pentecost  when  utterance  clear 

To  all  men  shall  be  given, 
When  all  shall  say  My  Brother  here, 

And  hear  My  Son  in  heaven ! 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS. 


THE    PARTING    OF   THE    WAYS. 

"VTTHO  hath  not  been  a  poet  ?    Who  hath  not, 
With  life's  new  quiver  full  of  winged  years, 
Shot  at  a  venture,  and  then,  following  on, 
Stood  doubtful  at  the  Parting  of  the  Ways  ? 

There  once  I  stood  in  dream,  and  as  I  paused, 
Looking  this  way  and  that,  came  forth  to  me 
The  figure  of  a  woman  veiled,  that  said, 
"  My  name  is  Duty,  turn  and  follow  me  "  ; 
Something  there  was  that  chilled  rne  in  her  voice  ; 
I  felt  Youth's  hand  grow  slack  and  cold  in  mine, 
As  if  to  be  withdrawn,  and  I  replied  : 
"  0,  leave  the  hot  wild  heart  within  my  breast ! 
Duty  comes  soon  enough,  too  soon  comes  Death  ; 
This  slippery  globe  of  life  whirls  of  itself, 
Hasting  our  youth  away  into  the  dark  ; 
These  senses,  quivering  with  electric  heats, 


64  THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS. 

Too  soon  will  show,  like  nests  on  wintry  boughs 
Obtrusive  emptiness,  too  palpable  wreck, 
Which  whistling  northwinds  line  with  downy  snow 
Sometimes,  or  fringe  with  foliaged  rime,  in  vain, 
Thither  the  singing  birds  no  more  return." 

Then  glowed  to  me  a  maiden  from  the  left, 
With  bosom  half  disclosed,  and  naked  arms 
More  white  and  undulant  than  necks  of  swans  ; 
And  all  before  her  steps  an  influence  ran 
Warm  as  the  whispering  South  that  opens  buds 
And  swells  the  laggard  sails  of  Northern  May. 
"  I  am  called  Pleasure,  come  with  me!"  she  said, 
Then  laughed,  and  shook  out  sunshine  from  her  hair, 
Not  only  that,  but,  so  it  seemed,  shook  out 
All  memory  too,  and  all  the  moonlit  past, 
Old  loves,  old  aspirations,  and  old  dreams, 
More  beautiful  for  being  old  and  gone. 

So  we  two  went  together  ;    downward  sloped 
The  path  through  yellow  meads,  or  so  I  dreamed, 
Yellow  with  sunshine  and  young  green,  but  I 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE   WAYS.  65 

Saw  naught  nor  heard,  shut  up  in  one  close  joy  ; 
I  only  felt  the  hand  within  my  own, 
Transmuting  all  my  blood  to  golden  fire, 
Dissolving  all  my  brain  in  throbbing  mist. 

Suddenly  shrank  the  hand  ;  suddenly  burst 

A  cry  that  split  the  torpor  of  my  brain, 

And  as  the  first  sharp  thrust  of  lightning  loosens 

From  the  heaped  cloud  its  rain,  loosened  my  sense : 

"  Save  me  !  "    it  thrilled ;    ''0  hide  me  !   there  is 

Death  ! 

Death  the  divider,  the  unmerciful, 
That  digs  his  pitfalls  under  Love  and  Youth 
And  covers  Beauty  up  in  the  cold  ground ; 
Horrible  Death !   bringer  of  endless  dark  ; 
Let  him  not  see  me  !  hide  me  in  thy  breast !  " 
Thereat  I  strove  to  clasp  her,  but  my  arms 
Met  only  what  slipped   crumbling  down,  and  fell, 
A  handful  of  gray  ashes,  at  my  feet. 

I  would  have  fled,  I  would  have  followed  back 
That  pleasant  path  we  came,  but  all  was  changed  ; 


66  THE  PARTING   OF   THE  WAYS. 

Rocky  the  way,  abrupt,  and  hard  to  find ; 
Yet  I  toiled  on,  and,  toiling  on,  I  thought, 
"That  way  lies  Youth,  and  Wisdom,  and  all  Good; 
For  only  by  unlearning  Wisdom  comes 
And  climbing  backward  to  diviner  Youth ; 
What  the  world  teaches  profits  to  the  world, 
What  the  soul  teaches  profits  to  the  soul, 
Which  then  first  stands  erect  with  Godward  face, 
When  she  lets  fall  her  pack  of  withered  facts, 
The  gleanings  of  the  outward  eye  and  ear, 
And  looks  and  listens  with  her  finer  sense  ; 
Nor  Truth  nor  Knowledge  cometh  from  without." 

After  long  weary  da3rs  I  stood  again 
And  waited  at  the  Parting  of  the  Ways  ; 
Again  the  figure  of  a  woman  veiled 
Stood  forth  and  beckoned,  and  I  followed  now : 
Down  to  no  bower  of  roses  led  the  path, 
But  through  the  streets  of  towns  where  chatter 
ing  Cold 

Hewed  wood  for  fires  whose  glow  was  owned  and 
fenced, 


THE   PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS.  67 

Where  Nakedness  wove  garments  of  warm  wool 
Not  for  itself ;  —  or  through  the  fields  it  led 
Where  Hunger  reaped  the  unattainable  grain, 
Where  Idleness  enforced  saw  idle  lands, 
Leagues  of  unpeopled  soil,  the  common  earth, 
Walled  round  with  paper  against  God  and  Man. 
"I  cannot  look,"  I  groaned,   "at  only  these; 
The  heart  grows  hardened  with  perpetual  wont, 
And  palters  with  a  feigned  necessity, 
Bargaining  with  itself  to  be  content ; 
Let  me  behold  thy  face.'7 

The  Form  replied  : 
"  Men  follow  Duty,  never  .overtake  ; 
Duty  nor  lifts  her  veil  nor  looks  behind." 
But,  as  she  spake,  a  loosened  lock  of  hair 
Slipped  from  beneath  her  hood,  and  I,  who  looked 
To  see  it  gray  and  thin,  saw  amplest  gold  ; 
Not  that  dull  metal  dug  from  sordid  earth, 
But  such  as  the  retiring  sunset  flood 
Leaves  heaped  on  bays  and  capes  of  island  cloud. 
"  0  Guide  divine,"  I  prayed,  "  although  not  yet 
I  may  repair  the  virtue  which  I  feel 


€8  THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS. 

Gone  out  at  touch  of  untuned  things  and  foul 
With  draughts  of  Beauty,  yet  declare  how  soon!" 

'  Faithless  and  faint  of  heart,"  the  voice  returned, 
"  Thou  see'st  no  beauty  save  thou  make  it  first ; 
Man,  Woman,  Nature,  each  is  but  a  glass 
Where  the  soul  sees  the  image  of  herself, 
Visible  echoes,  offsprings  of  herself. 
But,  since  thou  need'st  assurance  of  how  soon, 
Wait  till  that  angel  comes  who  opens  all, 
The  reconciler,  he  who  lifts  the  veil, 
The  reuuiter,  the  rest-bringer,  Death." 

I  waited,  and  methought  he  came  ;  but  how, 
Or  in  what  shape,  I  doubted,  for  no  sign, 
By  touch  or  mark,  he  gave  me  as  he  passed  ; 
Only  I  know  a  lily  that  I  held 
Snapt  short  below  the  head  and  shrivelled  up  ; 
Then    turned    my    Guide    and    looked    at   me   un 
veiled, 

And  1  beheld  no  face  of  matron  stern, 
But  that  enchantment  I  had  followed  erst, 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE   WAYS.  69 

Only  more  fair,  more  clear  to  eye  and  brain, 
Heightened  and  chastened  by  a  household  charm  ; 
She  smiled,  and  "  Which  is  fairer,"  said  her  eyes, 
"The  hag's  unreal  Florimel  o>'  mine?" 


70  ALADDIN. 


ALADDIN. 

\\ THEN  I  was  a  beggarly  boy, 
And  lived  in  a  cellar  damp, 
I  had  not  a  friend  nor  a  toy, 
But  I  had  Aladdin's  lamp ; 
When  I  could  not  sleep  for  cold, 
I  had  fire  enough  in  my  brain, 
And  builded,  with  roofs  of  gold, 
My  beautiful  castles  in  Spain! 

Since  then  I  have  toiled  day  and  night, 

I  have  money  and  power  good  store, 
But  I  'd  give  all  my  lamps  of  silver  bright, 

For  the  one  that  is  mine  no  more  ; 
Take,  Fortune,  whatever  you  choose, 

You  gave,  and  may  snatch  again  ; 
I  have  nothing  't  would  pain  me  to  lose, 

For  I  own  no  more  castles  in  Spain! 


AN   m^tr&mSife-^  71 


AN   INVITATION. 


1VTINE  years  have  slipt  like  hour-glass  sand 

From  life's  still-emptying  globe  away, 
Since  last,  dear  friend,  I  clasped  your  hand, 
And  stood  upon  the  impoverished  land, 
Watching  the  steamer  down  the  bay. 

I  held  the  token  which  you  gave, 
While  slowly  the  smoke-pennon  curled 
O'er  the  vague  rim  'tween  sky  and  wave, 
And  shut  the  distance  like  a  grave, 
Leaving  me  in  the  colder  world. 

The  old  worn  world  of  hurry  and  heat, 
The  young,  fresh  world  of  thought  arid  scope, 
While  you,  where  beckoning  billows  fleet 
Climb  far  sky-beaches  still  and  sweet, 
Sank  wavering  down  the  ocean-slope. 


72  AN   INVITATION. 

You  sought  the  new  world  in  the  old, 
I  found  the  old  world  in  the  new, 
All  that  our  human  hearts  can  hold, 
The  inward  world  of  deathless  mould, 
The  same  that  Father  Adam  knew. 

He  needs  no  ship  to  cross  the  tide, 
Who,  in  the  lives  about  him,  sees 
Fair  window-prospects  opening  wide 
O'er  history's  fields  on  every  side, 
To  Ind  and  Egypt,  Rome  and  Greece. 

Whatever  moulds  of  various  brain 
E'er  shaped  the  world  to  weal  or  woe, 
Whatever  empires'  wax  and  wane, 
To  him  that  hath  not  eyes  in  vain, 
Our  village-microcosm  can  show. 

Come  back  our  ancient  walks  to  tread, 
Dear  haunts  of  lost  or  scattered  friends, 
Old  Harvard's  scholar-factories  red, 
Where  song  and  smoke  and  laughter  sped 
The  nights  to  proctor-haunted  ends. 


AN   INVITATION.  73 

Constant  are  all  our  former  loves, 
Unchanged  the  icehouse-girdled  pond, 
Its  hemlock  glooms,  its  shadowy  coves, 
Where  floats  the  coot  and  never  moves, 
Its  slopes  of  long-tamed  green  beyond. 

Our  old  familiars  are  not  laid, 

Though  snapt  our  wands  and  sunk  our  books  ; 

They  beckon,  not  to  be  gainsaid, 

Where,  round  broad  meads  that  mowers  wade, 

The  Charles  his  steel-blue  sickle  crooks. 

Where,  as  the  cloudbergs  eastward  blow, 
From  glow  to  gloom  the  hillsides  shift 
Their  plumps  of  orchard-trees  arow, 
Their  lakes  of  rye  that  wave  and  flow, 
Their  snowy  whiteweed's  summer  drift. 

There  have  we  watched  the  West  unfurl 
A  cloud  Byzantium  newly  born, 
With  flickering  spires  and  domes  of  pearl, 
And  vapory  surfs  that  crowd  and  curl 
Into  the  sunset's  Golden  Horn. 

4 


74  AN   INVITATION. 

There,  as  the  flaming  Accident 
Burned  slowly  down  to  ashes  gray, 
Night  pitched  o'erhead  her  silent  tent, 
Arid  glimmering  gold  from  Ilesper  sprent 
Upon  the  darkened  river  lay, 

Where  a  twin  sky  but  just  before 
Deepened,  arid  double  swallows  skimmed, 
And,  from  a  visionary  shore, 
Hung  visioned  trees,  that,  more  and  more 
Grew  dusk  as  those  above  were  dimmed. 

Then  eastward  saw  we  slowly  grow 
Clear-edged  the  lines  of  roof  and  spire, 
While  great  elm-masses  blacken  slow, 
And  linden-ricks  their  round   heads  show 
Against  a  flush  of  widening  fire. 

Doubtful  at  first  and  far  away, 
The  moon-flood  creeps  more  wide  and  wide ; 
Up  a  ridged  beach  of  cloudy  gray, 
Curved  round  the  east  as  round  a  bay, 
It  slips  and  spreads  its  gradual  tide. 


AN  INVITATION.  75 

Then  suddenly,  in  lurid  mood, 

The  moon  looms  large  o'er  town  and  field 

As  upon  Adam,  red  like  blood, 

'Tween  him  and  Eden's  happy  wood, 

Glared  the  commissioned  angel's  shield. 

Or  let  us  seek  the  seaside,  there 
To  wander  idly  as  we  list, 
Whether,  on  rocky  headlands  bare, 
Sharp  cedar-horns,  like  breakers,  tear 
The  trailing  fringes  of  gray  mist, 

Or  whether,  under  skies  full  flown, 

The  brightening  surfs,  with  foamy  din, 

Their  breeze-caught  forelocks  backward  blown, 

Against  the  beach's  yellow  zone, 

Curl  slow,  and  plunge  forever  in. 

And,  as  we  watch  those  canvas  towers 
That  lean  along  the  horizon's  rim, 
"Sail  on,"  I  '11  say;   "may  sunniest  hours 
Convoy  you  from  this  land  of  ours, 
Since  from  my  side  you  bear  not  him  !  " 


76  AN   INVITATION. 

For  years  thrice  three,  wise  Horace  said, 
A  poem  rare  let  silence  bind  ; 
And  love  may  ripen  in  the  shade, 
Like  ours,  for  nine  long  seasons  laid 
In  deepest  arches  of  the  mind. 

Come  back !     Not  ours  the  Old  World's  good, 
The  Old  World's  ill,  thank  God,  not  ours  ; 
But  here,  far  better  understood, 
The  days  enforce  our  native  mood, 
And  challenge  all  our  manlier  powers. 

Kindlier  to  me  the  place  of  birth 
That  first  my  tottering  footsteps  trod  ; 
There  may  be  fairer  spots  of  earth, 
But  all  their  glories  are  not  worth 
The  virtue  of  the  native  sod. 

Thence  climbs  an  influence  more  benign 
Through  pulse  and  nerve,  through  heart  and  brain  ; 
Sacred  to  me  those  fibres  fine 
That  first  clasped  earth.     0,  ne'er  be  mine 
The  alien  sun  and  alien  rain ! 


AN  INVITATION.  77 

These  nourish  not  like  homelier  glows 
Or  waterings  of  familiar  skies, 
And  nature  fairer  blooms  bestows 
On  the  heaped  hush  of  wintry  snows, 
In  pastures  dear  to  childhood's  eyes, 

Than  where  Italian  earth  receives 
The  partial  sunshine's  ampler  boons, 
Where  vines  carve  friezes  'neath  the  eaves, 
And,  in  dark^  firmaments  of  leaves, 
The  orange  lifts  its  golden  moons. 


78  THE  POMADES. 


THE  NOMADES. 

"VTTIIAT  Nature  makes  in  any  mood 

To  me  is  warranted  for  good, 
Though  long  before  I  learned  to  see 
She  did  not  set  us  moral  theses, 
And  scorned  to  have  her  sweet  caprices 
Strait-waistcoatcd  in  you  or  me. 

I,  who  take  root  and  firmly  cling, 
Thought  fixedness  the  only  thing  ; 

Why  Nature  made  the  butterflies, 

* 

(Those  dreams  of  wings  that  float  and  hover 
At  noon  the  slumberous  poppies  over), 
Was  something  hidden  from  mine  eyes, 

Till  once,  upon  a  rock's  brown  bosom, 
Bright  as  a  thorny  cactus-blossom, 
I  saw  a  butterfly  at  rest ; 
Then  first  of  both  I  felt  the  beauty  ; 


THE  NOMADES.  79 

The  airy  whim,  the  grim-set  duty, 
Each  from  the  other  took  its  best. 

Clearer  it  grew  than  winter  sky 
That  Nature  still  had  reasons  why  ; 
And,  shifting  sudden  as  a  breeze, 
My  fancy  found  no  satisfaction, 
No  antithetic  sweet  attraction, 
So  great  as  in  the  Nomades. 

Scythians,  with  Nature  not  at  strife, 
Light  Arabs  of  our  complex  life, 
They  build  no  houses,  plant  no  mills 
To  utilize  Time's  sliding  river, 
Content  that  it  flow  waste  forever, 
If  they,  like  it,  may  have  their  wills. 

An  hour  they  pitch  their  shifting  tents 
In  thoughts,  in  feelings,  and  events  ; 
Beneath  the  palm-trees,  on  the  grass, 
They  sing,  they  dance,  make  love,  and  chatter, 
Vex  the  grim  temples  with  their  clatter, 
And  make  Truth's  fount  their  looking-glass. 


80  THE   XOMADES. 

A  picnic  life  ;  from  love  to  love, 

From  faith  to  faith  they  lightly  move, 

And  yet,  hard-eyed  philosopher, 

The  flightiest  maid  that  ever  hovered 

To  me  your  thought-webs  fine  discovered, 

No  lens  to  see  them  through  like  her. 

So  witchingly  her  finger-tips 

To  Wisdom,  as  away  she  trips, 

She  kisses,  waves  such  sweet  farewells 

To  Duty,  as  she  laughs  "To-morrow!" 

That  both  from  that  mad  contrast  borrow 

A  perfectness  found  nowhere  else. 

The  beach-bird  on  its  pearly  verge 
Follows  and  flies  the  whispering  surge, 
While,  in  his  tent,  the  rock-stayed  shell 
Awaits  the  flood's  star-timed  vibrations, 
And  both,  the  flutter  and  the  patience, 
The  sauntering  poet  loves  them  well. 

Fulfil  so  much  of  God's  decree 
As  works  its  problem  out  in  thee, 


THE  NOMADES.  81 

Nor  dream  that  in  thy  breast  alone 
The  conscience  of  the  changeful  seasons, 
The  Will  that  in  the  planets  reasons 
With  Space-wide  logic,  has  its  throne. 

Thy  virtue  makes  not  vice  of  mine, 
Unlike,  but  none  the  less  divine  ; 
Thy  toil  adorns,  not  chides,  my  play  ; 
Nature  of  sameness  is  so  chary, 
With  such  wild  whim  the  freakish  fairy 
Picks  presents  for  the  christening-day. 


82  SELF-STUDY. 


SELF-STUDY. 

A    PRESENCE  both  by  night  and  day, 
'"*    That  made  my  life  seem  just  begun, 
Yet  scarce  a  presence,  rather  say 
The  warning  aureole  of  one. 

And  yet  I  felt  it  everywhere ; 
Walked  I  the  woodland's  aisles  along, 
It  seemed  to  brush  me  with  its  hair  ; 
Bathed  I,  I  heard  a  mermaid's  song. 

How  sweet  it  was!     A  buttercup 
Could  hold  for  me  a  day's  delight, 
A  bird  could  lift  my  fancy  up 
To  ether  free  from  cloud  or  blight. 

Who  was  the  nymph?     Nay,  I  will  see, 
Methought,  and  I  will  know  her  near  ; 


SELF-STUDY.  83 

If  such,  divined,  her  charm  can  be, 
Seen  and  possessed,  how  triply  dear ! 

So  every  magic  art  I  tried, 
And  spells  as  numberless  as  sand, 
Until,  one  evening,  by  my  side 
I  saw  her  glowing  fulness  stand. 

I  turned  to  clasp  her,  but  "  Farewell," 
Parting  she  sighed,  "we  meet  no  more; 
Not  by  my  hand  the  curtain  fell 
That  leaves  you  conscious,  wise,  and  poor. 

"  Since  you  have  found  me  out,  I  go  ; 
Another  lover  I  must  find, 
Content  his  happiness  to  know, 
Nor  strive  its  secret  to  unwind." 


84  PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE. 


PICTURES  FROM   APPLEDORE. 

I. 

A     HEAP  of  bare  and  splintery  crags 
^*~  Tumbled  about  by  lightning  and  frost, 
With  rifts  and  chasms  and  storm-bleached  jags, 
That  wait  and  growl  for  a  ship  to  be  lost ; 
No  island,  but  rather  the  skeleton 
Of  a  wrecked  and  vengeance-smitten  one, 
Where,  icons  ago,  with  half-shut  eye, 
The  sluggish  saurian  crawled  to  die, 
Gasping  under  titanic  ferns  ; 
Ribs  of  rock  that  seaward  jut, 
Granite  shoulders  and  boulders  and  snags, 
Round  which,  though  the  winds  in  heaven  be  shut, 
The  nightmared  ocean  murmurs  and  yearns, 
Welters,  and  swashes,   and  tosses,  and  turns, 
And  the  dreary  black  sea-weed  lolls  and  wags; 
Only  rock  from  shore  to  shore, 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE.  85 

Only  a  moan  through  the  bleak  clefts  blown, 

With  sobs  in  the  rifts  where  the  coarse  kelp  shifts, 

Falling  and  lifting,  tossing  and  drifting, 

And  under  all  a  deep,  dull  roar, 

Dying  and  swelling  forevermore,  — 

Rock  and  moan  and  roar  alone, 

And  the  dread  of  some  nameless  thing  unknown, 

These  make  Appledore. 

These  make  Appledore  by  night : 

Then  there  are  monsters  left  and  right ; 

Every  rock  is  a  different  monster  ; 

All  you  have  read  of,  fancied,  dreamed, 

When  you  waked  at  night  because  you  screamed, 

There  they  lie  for  half  a  mile, 

Jumbled  together  in  a  pile, 

And  (though  you  know  they  never  once  stir), 

If  you  look  long,  they  seem  to  be  moving 

Just  as  plainly  as  plain  can  be, 

Crushing  and  crowding,  wading  and  shoving 

Out  into  the  awful  sea, 

Where  you  can  hear  them  snort  and  spout 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE. 

» 

With  pauses  between,  as  if  they  were  listening, 
Then  tumult  anon  when  the  surf  breaks  glistening 
In  the  blackness  where  they  wallow  about. 


II. 


All  this  you  would  scarcely  comprehend, 

Should  you  see  the  isle  on  a  sunny  day ; 

Then  it  is  simple  enough  in  its  way,  — 

Two  rocky  bulges,  one  at  each  end, 

With  a  smaller  bulge  and  a  hollow  between ; 

Patches  of  whortleberry  and  bay  ; 

Accidents  of  open  green, 

Sprinkled  with  loose  slabs  square  and  gray, 

Like  graveyards  for  ages  deserted  ;    a  few 

Unsocial  thistles  ;   an  elder  or  two, 

Foamed  over  with  blossoms  white  as  spray  ; 

And  on  the  whole  island  never  a  tree 

Save  a  score  of  sumachs,  high  as  your  knee, 

That  crouch  in  hollows  where  they  may, 

(The  cellars  where  once  stood  a  village,  men  say,) 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE.  87 

Huddling  for  warmth,  and  never  grew 

Tall  enough  for  a  peep  at  the  sea ; 

A  general  dazzle  of  open  blue ; 

A  breeze  always  blowing  and  playing  rat-tat 

With  the  bow  of  the  ribbon  round  your  hat ; 

A  score  of  sheep  that  do  nothing  but  stare 

Up  or  down  at  you  everywhere  ; 

Three  or  four  cattle  that  chew  the  cud 

Lying  about  in  a  listless  despair ; 

A.  raedrick  that  makes  you  look  overhead 

With  short,  sharp  scream,  as  he  sights   his  prey, 

And,  dropping  straight  and  swift  as  lead, 

Splits  the  water  with  sudden  thud  ;  — 

This  is  Appledore  by  day. 

A  common  island,  you  will  say  ; 
But  stay  a  moment :   only  climb 
*Up  to  the  highest  rock  of  the  isle, 
Stand  there  alone  for  a  little  while, 
And  with  gentle  approaches  it  grows  sublime, 
Dilating  slowly  as  you  win 
A  sense  from  the  silence  to  take  it  in. 


68  PICTURES   FROM   APPLEDORE. 

So  wide  the  loneness,  so  lucid  the  air, 

The  granite  beneath  you  BO  savagely  bare, 

You  well  might  think  you  were  looking  down 

From  some  sky-silenced  mountain's  crown, 

Whose  far-down  pines  are  wont  to  tear 

Locks  of  wool  from  the  topmost  cloud. 

Only  be  sure  you  go  alone, 

For  Grandeur  is  inaccessibly  proud, 

And  never  yet  has  backward  thrown 

Her  veil  to  feed  the  stare  of  a  crowd  ; 

To  more  than  one  was  never  shown 

That  awful  front,  nor  is  it  fit 

That  she,  Cothurnus-shod,  stand  bowed 

Until  the  self-approving  pit 

Enjoy  the  gust  of  its  own  wit 

In  babbling  plaudits  cheaply  loud  ; 

She  hides  her  mountains  and  her  sea 

From  the  harriers  of  scenery, 

Who  hunt  down  sunsets,  and  huddle  and  bay, 

Mouthing  and  mumbling  the  dying  day. 

Trust  me,  't  is  something  to  be  cast 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE.  89 

Face  to  face  with  one's  Self  at  last, 

To  be  taken  out  of  the  fuss  and  strife, 

The  endless  clatter  of  plate  and  knife, 

The  bore  of  books  and  the  bores  of  the  street, 

From  the  singular  mess  we  agree  to  call  Life, 

Where  that  is  best  which  the  most  fools  vote  is, 

And  to  be  set  down  on  one's  own  two  feet 

So  nigh  to  the  great  warm  heart  of  God, 

You  almost  seem  to  feel  it  beat 

Down  from  the  sunshine  and  up  from  the  sod  ; 

To  be  compelled,  as  it  were,  to  notice 

All  the  beautiful  changes  and  chances 

Through  which  the  landscape  flits  and  glances, 

And  to  see  how  the  face  of  common  day 

Is  written  all  over  with  tender  histories, 

When  you  study  it  that  intenser  way 

In  which  a  lover  looks  at  his  mistress. 

Till  now  you  dreamed  not  what  could  be  done 
With  a  bit  of  rock  and  a  ray  of  sun ; 
But  look,  how  fade  the  lights  and  shades 
Of  keen  bare  edge  and  crevice  deep  ! 


90  PICTURES  FROM   APPLEDORE. 

How  doubtfully  it  fades  and  fades, 

And  glows  again,  yon  craggy  steep, 

O'er  which,  through  color's  dreamiest  grades, 

The  yellow  sunbeams  pause  and  creep  ! 

Now  pink  it  blooms,  now  glimmers  gray, 

Now  shadows  to  a  filmy  blue, 

Tries  one,  tries  all,  and  will  not  stay, 

But  flits  from  opal  hue  to  hue, 

And  runs  through  every  tenderest  range 

Of  change  that  seems  not  to  be  change, 

So  rare  the  sweep,  so  nice  the  art, 

That  lays  no  stress  on  any  part, 

But  shifts  and  lingers  and  persuades  ; 

So  soft  that  sun-brush  in  the  west, 

That  asks  no  costlier  pigments'  aids, 

But  mingling  knobs,  flaws,  angles,  dints, 

Indifferent  of  worst  or  best, 

Enchants  the  cliffs  with  wraiths  and  hints 

And  gracious  preludings  of  tints, 

Where  all  seems  fixed,  yet  all  evades, 

And  indefinably  pervades 

Perpetual  movement  with  perpetual  rest! 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE.  91 


III. 

Away  northeast  is  Boone  Island  light  ; 

You  might  mistake  it  for  a  ship, 

Only  it  stands  too  plumb  upright, 

And  like  the  others  does  not  slip 

Behind  the  sea's  unsteady  brink  ; 

Though,  if  a  cloud-shade  chance  to  dip 

Upon  it  a  moment,  ;t  will  suddenly  sink, 

Levelled  and  lost  in  the  darkened  main, 

Till  the  sun  builds  it  suddenly  up  again, 

As  if  with  a  rub  of  Aladdin's  lamp. 

On  the  main-land  you  see  a  misty  camp 

Of  mountains  pitched  tumultuously  : 

That  one  looming  so  long  and  large 

Is  Saddleback,  and  that  point  you  see 

Over  yon  low  and  rounded  marge, 

Like  the  boss  of  a  sleeping  giant's  targe 

Laid  over  his  breast,  is  Ossipee  ; 

That  shadow  there  may  be  Kearsarge  ; 

That  must  be  Great  Haystack  ;  I  love  these  names, 


92  PICTURES  FROM   APPLEDORE. 

Wherewith  the  lonely  farmer  tames 

Nature  to  mute  companionship 

With  his  own  mind's  domestic  mood, 

And  strives  the  surly  world  to  clip 

In  the  arms  of  familiar  habitude. 

'T  is  well  he  could  not  contrive  to  make 

A  Saxon  of  Agamenticus  : 

He  glowers  there  to  the  north  of  us, 

Wrapt  in  his  blanket  of  blue  haze, 

Unconvertibly  savage,  and  scorns  to  take 

The  white  man's  baptism  or  his  ways. 

Him  first  on  shore  the  coaster  divines 

Through  the  early  gray,  and  sees  him  shake 

The  morning  mist  from  his  scalp-lock  of  pines  ; 

Him  first  the  skipper  makes  out  in  the  west, 

Ere  the  earliest  sunstreak  shoots  tremulous, 

Plashing  with  orange  the  palpitant  lines 

Of  mutable  billow,  crest  after  crest, 

And  murmurs  Agamenticus  I 

As  if  it  were  the  name  of  a  saint. 

But  is  that  a  mountain  playing  cloud, 

Or  a  cloud  playing  mountain,  just  there,  so  faint  ? 


PICTURES   FROM   Al'l'LEDORE.  93 

Look  along  over  the  low  right  shoulder 

Of  Agamenticus  into  that  crowd 

Of  brassy  thunderheads  behind  it  ; 

Now  you  have  caught  it,  but,  ere  you  are  older 

By  half  an  hour,  you   will  lose  it  and  find  it 

A  score  of  times  ;   while  you  look  ;t  is  gone, 

And,  just  as  you  've  given  it  up,   anon  - 

It  is  there  again,  till  your  weary  eyes 

Fancy  they  see  it  waver  and  rise, 

"With  its  brother  clouds  ;    it  is  Agiochook, 

There  if  you  seek  not,  and  gone  if  you  look, 

Ninety  miles  off  as  the  eagle  flies. 

But  mountains  make  not  all  the  shore 
The  main-land  shows  to  Appledore  ; 
Eight  miles  the  heaving  water  spreads 
To  a  long  low  coast  with  beaches  and  heads 
That  run  through  unimagined  mazes, 
As  the  lights  and  shades  and  magical  hazes 
Put  them  away  or  bring  them  near,  . 
Shimmering,  sketched  out  for  thirty  miles 
Between  two  capes  that  waver  like  threads, 


94  PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE. 

And  sink  in  the  ocean,  and  reappear, 

Crumbled  and  melted  to  little  isles, 

With  filmy  trees,  that  seem  the  mere 

Half-fancies  of  drowsy  atmosphere ; 

And  see  the  beach  there,  where  it  is 

Flat  as  a  threshing-floor,  beaten  and  packed 

With  the  flashing  flails  of  weariless  seas, 

How  it  lifts  and  looms  to  a  precipice, 

O'er  whose  square  front,  a  dream,  no  more, 

The  steepened  sand-stripes  seem  to  pour, 

A  murmurless  vision  of  cataract ; 

You  almost  fancy  you  hear  a  roar, 

Fitful  and  faint  from  the  distance  wandering; 

But  'tis  only  the  blind  old  ocean  maundering, 

Raking  the  shingle  to  and  fro, 

Aimlessly  clutching  and  letting  go 

The  kelp-haired  sedges  of  Appledore, 

Slipping  down  with  a  sleepy  forgetting, 

And  anon  his  ponderous  shoulder  setting, 

With  a  deep,  hoarse  pant  against  Appledore. 


PICTURES   FROM   APPLEDORE.  95 


IV. 

Eastward  as  far  as  the  eye  can  see, 

Still  eastward,  eastward,  endlessly, 

The  sparkle  and  tremor  of  purple  sea 

That  rises  before  you,  a  flickering  hill, 

On  and  on  to  the  shut  of  the  sky, 

And  beyond,  you  fancy  it  sloping  until 

The  same  multitudinous  throb  and  thrill 

That  vibrate  under  your  dizzy  eye 

In  ripples  of  orange  and  pink  are  sent 

Where  the  poppied  sails  doze  on  the  yard, 

And  the  clumsy  junk  and  proa  lie 

Sunk  deep  with  precious  woods  and  nard, 

'Mid  the  palmy  isles  of  the  Orient. 

Those  leaning  towers  of  clouded  white 
On  the  farthest  brink  of  doubtful  ocean, 
That  shorten  and  shorten  out  of  sight, 
Yet  seem  on  the  selfsame  spot  to  stay, 
Receding  with  a  motionless  motion, 
Fading  to  dubious  films  of  gray, 


96  PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE. 

Lost,  dimly  found,  then  vanished  wholly, 

Will  rise  again,  the  great  world  under, 

First  films,  then  towers,  then  high-heaped  clouds, 

Whose  nearing  outlines  sharpen  slowly 

Into  tall  ships  with  cobweb  shrouds, 

That  fill  long  Mongol  eyes  with  wonder, 

Crushing  the  violet  wave  to  spray 

Past  some  low  headland  of  Cathay ;  — 

What  was  that  sigh  which  seemed  so  near, 

Chilling  your  fancy  to  the  core  ? 

;T  is  only  the  sad  old  sea  you  hear, 

That  seems  to  seek  forevermore 

Something  it  cannot  find,  and  so, 

Sighing,  seeks  on,  and  tells  its  woe 

To  the  pitiless  breakers  of  Appledore. 


V. 

How  looks  Appledore  in  a  storm  ? 

I  have  seen  it  when  its  crags  seemed  frantic, 
Butting  against  the  mad  Atlantic, 


PICTURES   FROM   APPLEDORE.  97 

When  surge  on  surge  would  heap  enorme, 
Cliffs  of  emerald  topped  with  snow, 
That  lifted  and  lifted,  and  then  let  go 

A  great  white  avalanche  of  thunder, 
A  grinding,  blinding,  deafening  ire 

Monadnock  might  have  trembled  under  ; 

And  the  island,  whose  rock-roots  pierce  below 
To  where  they  are  warmed  with  the  central  fire, 

You  could  feel  its  granite  fibres  racked, 

As  it  seemed  to  plunge  with  a  shudder  and  thrill 
Right  at  the  breast  of  the  swooping  hill, 

And  to  rise  again,  snorting  a  cataract 

Of  rage-froth  from  every  cranny  and  ledge, 

While  the  sea  drew  its  breath  in  hoarse  and  deep, 

And  the  next  vast  breaker  curled  its  edge, 
Gathering  itself  for  a  mightier  leap. 

North,  east,  and  south  there  are  reefs  and  breakers 
You  would  never  dream  of  in  smooth  weather, 

That  toss  arid  gore  the  sea  for  acres, 

Bellowing  and  gnashing  and  snarling  together ; 

Look  northward,  where  Duck  Island  lies, 


98  PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE. 

And  over  its  crown  you  will  see  arise, 
Against  a  background  of  slaty  skies, 

A  row  of  pillars  still  and  white, 

That  glimmer,  and  then  are  out  of  sight, 
As  if  the  moon  should  suddenly  kiss, 

While  you  crossed  the  gusty  desert  by  night, 
The  long  colonnades  of  Persepolis  ; 
Look  southward  for  White  Island  light, 

The  lantern  stands  ninety  feet  o'er  the  tide  ; 
There  is  first  a  half-mile  of  tumult  and  fight, 
Of  dash  and  roar  and  tumble  and  fright, 

And  surging  bewilderment  wild  and  wide, 
Where  the  breakers  struggle  left  and  right, 

Then  a  mile  or  more  of  rushing  sea, 
And  then  the  light-house  slim  and  lone  ; 
And  whenever  the  weight  of  ocean  is  thrown 
Full  and  fair  on  White  Island  head, 

A  great  mist-jotun  you  will  see 

Lifting  himself  up  silently 
High  and  huge  o'er  the  light-house  top, 
With  hands  of  wavering  spray  outspread, 

Groping  after  the  little  tower, 


PICTURES   FROM   APPLEDORE.  99 

That  seems  to  shrink  and  shorten  and  cower, 
Till  the  monster's  arms  of  a  sadden  drop, 
And  silently  and  fruitlessly 
He  sinks  again  i^ito  the  sea. 

You,  meanwhile,  where  drenched  you  stand, 
Awaken  once  more  to  the  rush  and  roar, 

And  on  the  rock-point  tighten  your  hand, 

As  you  turn  and  see  a  valley  deep, 
That  was  not  there  a  moment  before, 

Suck  rattling  down  between  you  and  a  heap 
Of  toppling  billow,  whose  instant  fall 
Must  sink  the  whole  island  once  for  all, 

Or  watch  the  silenter,  stealthier  seas 

Feeling  their  way  to  you  more  and  more  ; 

If  they  once  should  clutch  you  high  as  the  knees, 

They  would  whirl  you  down  like  a  sprig  of  kelp, 

Beyond  all  reach  of  hope  or  help  ;  - 
And  such  in  a  storm  is  Appledore. 


100  PICTURES   FROM   APPLEDORE. 


VI. 

'T  is  the  sight  of  a  lifetime  to  behold 

The  great  shorn  sun  as  you  see  it  now, 

Across  eight  miles  of  undulant  gold 

That  widens  landward,  weltered  and  rolled, 

With  freaks  of  shadow  and  crimson  stains  ; 

To  see  the  solid  mountain  brow 

As  it  notches  the  disk,  and  gains  and  gains 

Until  there  comes,  you  scarce  know  when, 

A  tremble  of  fire  o'er  the  parted  lips 

Of  cloud  and  mountain,  which  vanishes,  —  then 

From  the  body  of  day  the  sun-soul  slips 

And  the  face  of  earth  darkens  ;  but  now  the  strips 

Of  western  vapor,  straight  and  thin, 

From  which  the  horizon's  swervings  win 

A  grace  of  contrast,  take  fire  and  burn 

Like  splinters  of  touchwood,  whose  edges  a  mould 

Of  ashes  o'erfeathers  ;  northward  turn 

For  an  instant,  and  let  your  eye  grow  cold 

On  Agamenticus,  and  when  once  more 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE.  101 

You  look,  Jt  is  as  if  the  land-breeze,  growing, 
From    the    smouldering     brands    the    film     were 

blowing, 

And  brightening  them  down  to  the  very  core  ; 
Yet  they  momently  cool  and  dampen  and  deaden, 
The  crimson  turns  golden,  the  gold  turns  leaden, 
Hardening  into  one  black  bar 
O'er  which,  from  the  hollow  heaven  afar, 
Shoots  a  splinter  of  light  like  diamond, 
Half  seen,  half  fancied  ;  by  and  by, 
Beyond  whatever  is  most  beyond 
In  the  uttermost  waste  of  desert  sky, 
Grows  a  star  ; 

And  over  it,  visible  spirit  of  dew,  — 
Ah,  stir  not,  speak  not,  hold  your  breath, 
Or  surely  the  miracle  vanisheth,  — 
The  new  moon,  tranced  in  unspeakable  blue  I 
No  frail  illusion  ;  this  were  true, 
Bather,  to  call  it  the  canoe 
Hollowed  out  of  a  single  pearl, 
That  floats  us  from  the  Present's  whirl 
Back  to  those  beings  which  were  ours, 


102  PICTURES   FROM  APPLEDORE. 

When  wishes  were  winged  things  like  powers  ! 

Call  it  not  light,  that  mystery  tender, 

Which  broods  upon  the  brooding  ocean, 

That  flush  of  ecstasied  surrender 

To  indefinable  emotion, 

That  glory,  mellower  than  a  mist 

Of  pearl  dissolved  with  amethyst, 

Which  rims  Square  Rock,  like  what  they  paint 

Of  mitigated  heavenly  splendor 

Round  the  stern  forehead  of  a  Saint ! 

No  more  a  vision,  reddened,  largened, 
The  moon  dips  toward  her  mountain  nest, 
And,  fringing  it  with  palest  argent, 
Slow  sheathes  herself  behind  the  margent 
Of  that  long  cloud-bar  in  the  West, 
Whose  nether  edge,  erelong,  you  see 
The  silvery -chrism  in  turn  anoint, 
And  then  the  tiniest  rosy  point 
Touched  doubtfully  and  timidly 
Into  the  dark  blue's  chilly  strip, 
As  some  mute,  wondering  thing  below, 


PICTURES  FKOM  APPLEDOBE.  103 

Awakened  by  the  thrilling  glow, 
Might,  looking  up,  see  Dian  dip 
One  lucent  foot's  delaying  tip 
In  Latmian  fountains  long  ago. 

Knew  you  what  silence  was  before  ? 
Here  is  no  startle  of  dreaming  bird 
Thai  sings  in  his  sleep,  or  strives  to  sing ; 
Here  is  no  sough  of  branches  stirred, 
Nor  noise  of  any  living  thing, 
Such  as  one  hears  by  night  on  shore  ; 
Only,  now  and  then,  a  sigh, 
WitL  fickle  intervals  between, 
Sometimes  far,  and  sometimes  nigh, 
Such  as  Andromeda  might  have  heard, 
And  fancied  the  huge  sea-beast  unseen 
Turning  in  sleep  ;   it  is  the  sea 
That  welters  and  wavers  uneasily 
Bound  the  lonely  reefs  of  Appledore. 


104  THE   WIND-HARP. 


THE    WIND-HARP. 

T  TREASURE  in  secret  some  long,  fine  hair 

Of  tenderest  brown,  but  so  inwardly  golden 
I  half  used  to  fancy  the  sunshine  there, 
So  shy,  so  shifting,  so  waywardly  rare, 

Was  only  caught  for  the  moment  and  holden 
While  I  could  say  Dearest !  and  kiss  it,  and  then 
In  pity  let  go  to  the  summer  again. 

I  twisted  this  magic  in  gossamer  strings 

Over  a  wind-harp's  Delphian  hollow  ; 
Then  called  to  the  idle  breeze  that  swings 
All  day  in  the  pine-tops,  and  clings,  and  sings 
'Mid  the  musical  leaves,  and  said,   "  0,  follow 
The  will  of  those  tears  that  deepen  my  words, 
And  fly  to  my  window  to  waken  these  chords." 

So  they  trembled  to  life,  and,  doubtfully 

Feeling    their    way   to    my   sense,   sang,   "  Say 
whether 


THE  WIND-HARP.  105 

They  sit  all  day  by  the  greenwood  tree, 
The  lover  and  loved,  as  it  wont  to  be, 

When   we" but    grief   conquered,    and    all 

.together 
They   swelled    such   weird   murmur   as    haunts    a 

shore 
Of  some  planet  dispeopled,  —  "Nevermore"!      „ 

Then  from  deep  in  the  past,  as  seemed  to  me, 

The  strings  gathered  sorrow  and  sang  forsaken, 
"One  lover  still  waits  'neath  the  greenwood  tree, 
But  'tis  dark,"  and  they  shuddered,  "where  lieth 

she 

Dark  and  cold  !     Forever  must  one  be  taken  ?  " 
But  I  groaned,  "  0  harp  of  all  ruth  bereft, 
This  Scripture  is  sadder,  —  '  the  other  left ' !  " 

There  murmured,  as  if  one  strove  to  speak, 
And  tears  came  instead  ;    then    the    sad    tones 

wandered 

And  faltered  among  the  uncertain  chords 
In  a  troubled  doubt  between  sorrow  and  words  ; 


106  THE  WIND-HARP. 

At   last   with    themselves   they   questioned   and 

pondered, 

"Hereafter?  —  who  knoweth?"  and  so  they  sighed 
Down  the  long  steps  that  lead  to  silence  an,d  died. 


AUF  W1EDERSEHEN.  107 


AUF    WIEDERSEHEN! 


SUMMER. 


THE  little  gate  was  reached  at  last, 
Half  hid  in  lilacs  down  the  lane  ; 
She  pushed  it  wide,  and,  as  she  past, 
A  wistful  look  she  backward  cast, 
And  said,  —  "  Auf  wiedersehen  I " 

With  hand  on  latch,  a  vision  white 

Lingered  reluctant,  and  again 
Half  doubting  if  she  did  aright, 
Soft  as  the  dews  that  fell  that  night, 

She  said,  —  "Auf  wiedersehen!  " 

The  lamp's  clear  gleam  flits  up  the  stair  ; 

I  linger  in  delicious  pain  ; 
Ah,  in  that  chamber,  whose  rich  air 
To  breathe  in  thought  I  scarcely  dare, 

Thinks  slue,  —  "  Auf  wiedersehen !  " 


108  AUF  WIEDERSEHEN. 

;T  is  thirteen  years  ;    once  more  I  press 

The  turf  that  silences  the  lane  ; 
I  hear  the  rustle  of  her  dress, 
I  smell  the  lilacs,  and  —  ah,  yes, 
I  hear  "  Auf  wiedersehen  I  ^ 

Sweet  piece  of  bashful  maiden  art ! 

The  English  words  had  seemed  too  fain, 
But  these  —  they  drew  us  heart  to  heart, 
Yet  held  us  tenderly  apart ; 

She  said,  "  Auf  wiederselien  1 " 


PALINODE.  109 


PALINODE. 

AUTUMN. 

thirteen  years :    't  is  autumn  now 
On  field  and  hill,  in  heart  and  brain  ; 
The  naked  trees  at  evening  sough  ; 
The  leaf  to  the  forsaken  bough 
Sighs  not, —  "We  meet  again!" 

Two  watched  yon  oriole's  pendent  dome, 
That  now  is  void,  and  dank  with  rain, 

And  one,  — 0,  hope  more  frail  than  foam! 

The  bird  to  his  deserted  home 
Sings  not,  —  "  We  meet  again  !  " 

The  loath  gate  swings  with  rusty  creak  ; 

Once,  parting  there,  we  played  at  pain  ; 
There  came  a  parting,  when  the  weak 


PALINODE. 

And  fading  lips  essayed  to  speak 
Vainly,  —  "  We  meet  again ! " 

Somewhere  is  comfort,  somewhere  faith, 

Though  thou  in  outer  dark  remain ; 
One  sweet,  sad  voice  ennobles  death, 
And  still,  for  eighteen  centuries  saith 
Softly,  —  "  Ye  meet  again  !  " 

If  earth  another  grave  must  bear, 

Yet  heaven  hath  won  a  sweeter  strain, 
And  something  whispers  my  despair, 
That,  from  an  orient  chamber  there, 
Floats  down,  "We  meet  again!" 


AFTER  THE  BURIAL.  Ill 


AFTER    THE    BURIAL. 

"XT'ES,  Faith  is  a  goodly  anchor ; 

When  skies  are  sweet  as  a  psalm, 
At  the  bows  it  lolls  so  stalwart, 
In  bluff,  broad-shouldered  calm. 

And  when  over  breakers  to  leeward 
The  tattered  surges  are  hurled, 
It  may  keep  our  head  to  the  tempest, 
With  its  grip  on  the  base  of  the  world. 

But,  after  the  shipwreck,  tell  me 
What  help  in  its  iron  thews, 
Still  true  to  the  broken  hawser, 
Deep  down  among  sea-weed  and  ooze  ? 

In  the  breaking  gulfs  of  sorrow, 
When  the  helpless  feet  stretch  out 


112  AFTER  THE  BURIAL. 

And  find  in  the  deeps  of  darkness 
No  footing  so  solid  as  doubt, 

Then  better  one  spar  of  Memory, 
One  broken  plank  of  the  Past, 
That  our  human  heart  may  cling  to, 
Though  hopeless  of  shore  at  last! 

To  the  spirit  its  splendid  conjectures, 
To  the  flesh  its  sweet  despair, 
Its  tears  o'er  the  thin-worn  locket 
With  its  anguish  of  deathless  hair ! 

Immortal  ?    I  feel  it  and  know  it, 
Who  doubts  it  of  such  as  she  ? 
But  that  is  the  pang's  very  secret,  — 
Immortal  away  from  me. 

There  's  a  narrow  ridge  in  the  graveyard 
Would  scarce  stay  a  child  in  his  race, 
But  to  me  and  my  thought  it  is  wider 
Than  the  star-sown  vague  of  Space. 


AFTER  THE  BURIAL.  113 

Your  logic,  my  friend,  is  perfect, 
Your  morals  most  drearily  true  ; 
But,  since  the  earth  clashed  on  lier  coffin, 
I  keep  hearing  that,  and  not  you. 

Console  if  you  will,  I  can  bear  it ; 
;T  is  a  well-meant  alms  of  breath  ; 
But  not  all  the  preaching  since  Adam 
Has  made  Death  other  than  Death. 

It  is  pagan  ;  but  wait  till  you  feel  it,  — 
That  jar  of  our  earth,  that  dull  shock 
When  the  ploughshare  of  deeper  passion 
Tears  down  to  our  primitive  rock. 

Communion  in  spirit !     Forgive  me, 

But  I,  who  am  earthy  and  weak, 

Would  give  all  my  incomes  from  dreamland 

For  a  touch  of  her  hand  on  my  cheek. 

That  little  shoe  in  the  corner, 
So  worn  and  wrinkled  and  brown, 
With  its  emptiness  confutes  you, 
And  argues  your  wisdom  down. 


114  THE  DEAD  HOUSE. 


THE    DEAD    HOUSE. 

TTTERE  once  my  step  was  quickened, 
-•—^   Here  beckoned  the  opening  door, 
And  welcome  thrilled  from  the  threshold 
To  the  foot  it  had  known  before. 

A  glow  came  forth  to  meet  me 

From  the  flame  that  laughed  in  the  grate, 
And  shadows  adance  on  the  ceiling, 

Danced  blither  with  mine  for  a  mate. 

"  I  claim  you,  old  friend,"  yawned  the  arm-chair, 
"This  corner,  you  know,  is  your  seat"  ; 

"Rest  your  slippers  on  me,"  beamed  the  fender, 
"  I  brighten  at  touch  of  your  feet." 

"  We  know  the  practised  finger," 

Said  the  books,  "  that  seems  like  brain  "  ; 


THE  DEAD  HOUSE.  115 

And  the  shy  page  rustled  the  secret 
It  had  kept  till  I  came  again. 

Sang  the  pillow,  "  My  down  once  quivered 
On  nightingales'  throats  that  flew 

Through'  moonlit  gardens  of  Hafiz     * 
To  gather  quaint  dreams  for  you." 

Ah  me,  where  the  Past  sowed  heart's-ease, 
The  -Present  plucks  rue  for  us  men  ! 

I  come  back  :   that  scar  unhealing 
Was  not  in  the  churchyard  then. 

But,  I  think,  the  house  is  unaltered, 

I  will  go  and  beg  to  look 
At  the  rooms  that  were  once  familiar 

To  my  life  as  its  bed  to  a  brook. 

Unaltered  !     Alas  for  the  sameness 
That  makes  the  change  but  more ! 

'T  is  a  dead  man  I  see  in  the  mirrors, 
'T  is  his  tread  that  chills  the  floor ! 


116  THE  DEAD  HOUSE.* 

To  learn  such  a  simple  lesson, 

Need  I  go  to  Paris  and  Rome, 
That  the  many  make  the  household, 

But  only  one  the  home? 

'T  was  just  a  womanly  presence, 

An  influence  unexprest, 
But  a  rose  she  had  worn,  on  my  grave-sod 

Were  more  than  long  life  with  the  rest  1 

'T  was  a  smile,  't  was  a  garment's  rustle, 
'T  was  nothing  that  I  can  phrase, 

But  the  whole  dumb  dwelling  grew  conscious, 
And  put  on  her  looks  and  ways. 

Were  it  mine  I  would  close  the  shutters, 

Like  lids  when  the  life  is  fled, 
And  the  funeral  fire  should  wind  it, 

This  corpse  of  a  home  that  is  dead. 

For  it  died  that  autumn  morning 

When  she,  its  soul,  was  borne 
To  lie  all  dark  on  the  hillside 

That  looks  over  woodland  and  corn. 


A  MOOD.  117 


A     MOOD. 

TJTNE  in  the  distance, 

-*•     Patient  through  sun  or  rain, 

Meeting  with  graceful  persistence, 

With  yielding  but  rooted  resistance, 

The  corthwind's  wrench  and  strain, 

No  memory  of  past  existence 

Brings  thee  pain  ; 

Right  for  the  zenith  heading, 

Friendly  with  heat  or  cold, 

Thine  arms  to  the  influence  spreading 

Of  the  heavens,  just  from  of  old, 

Thou  only  aspirest  the  more, 

Unregretfut  the  old  leaves  shedding 

That  fringed  thee  with  music  before, 

And  deeper  thy  roots  embedding 

In  the  grace  and  the  beauty  of  yore  ; 

Thou  sigh'st  not,  "  Alas,  I  am  older, 


118  A  MOOD. 

The  green  of  last  summer  is  sear !  " 
But  loftier,  hopefuller,  bolder, 
Wins  broader  horizons  each  year. 

To  me  't  is  not  cheer  thou  art  singing  : 

There  's  a  sound  of  the  sea, 

0  mournful  tree, 

In  thy  boughs  forever  clinging, 

And  the  far-off  roar 

» 

Of  waves  on  the  shore 

A  shattered  vessel  flinging. 

As  thou  musest  still  of  the  ocean 

On  which  thou  must  float  at  last, 

And  seem'st  to  foreknow 

The  shipwreck's  woe 

And  the  sailor  wrenched  from  the  broken  mast, 

Do  I,  in  this  vague  emotion, 

This  sadness  that  will  not  pass, 

Though  the  air  throbs  with  wings, 

And  the  field  laughs  and  sings, 

Do  I  forebode,  alas  I 


A  MOOD.  119 

The  ship-building  longer  and  wearier, 
The  voyage's  struggle  and  strife, 
And  then  the  darker  and  drearier 
Wreck  of  a  broken  life  ? 


120  THE   VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND. 


THE   VOYAGE   TO   VINLAND. 

L 

BIORN'S  BECKONERS. 

Biorn,  the  son  of  Heriulf,  had  ill  daya 
Because  the  heart  within   him   seethed  with 

blood 

That  would  not  be  allayed  with  any  toil, 
Whether  of  war  or  hunting  or  the  oar, 
But  was  anhungered  for  some  joy  untried : 
For  the  brain  grew  not  weary  with  the  limbs, 
But,  while  the}'  slept,  still  hammered  like  a  Troll, 
Building  all  night  a  bridge  of  solid  dream 
Between  him  and  some  purpose  of  his  soul, 
Or  will  to  find  a  purpose.     With  the  dawn 
The  sleep-laid  timbers,  crumbled  to  soft  mist, 
Denied  all  foothold.     But  the  dream  remained, 
And  every  night  with  yellow-bearded  kings 
His  sleep  was  haunted,  —  mighty  men  of  old, 
Once  young  as  he,  now  ancient  like  the  gods, 
And  safe  as  stars  in  all  men's  memories. 


THE  VOYAGE  TO   VINLAND.  121 

Strange  sagas  read  he  in  their  sea-blue  eyes 
Cold  as  the  sea,  grandly  compassionless ; 
Like  life,  they  made  him  eager  and  then  mocked. 
Nay,  broad  awake,  they  would  not  let  him  be  ; 
They  shaped  themselves  gigantic  in  the  mist, 
They  rose  far-beckoning  in  the  lamps  of  heaven, 
They  whispered  invitation  in  the  winds, 
And  breath  came  from  them,  mightier  than  the  wind, 
To  strain  the  lagging  sails  of  his  resolve, 
Till  that  grew  passion  which  before  was  wish, 
And  youth  seemed  all  too  costly  to  be  staked 
On   the  soiled  cards  wherewith   men  played  their 

game, 

Letting  Time  pocket  up  the  larger  life, 
Lost  with  base  gain  of  raiment,  food,  arid  roof. 
"What  helpeth  lightness  of  the  feet?7'  they  said, 
"  Oblivion  runs  with  swifter  foot  than  they ; 
Or  strength  of  sinew  ?     New  men  come  as  strong, 
And  those  sleep  nameless  ;  or  renown  in  war  ? 
Swords  grave  no  name  on  the  long-memoried  rock 
But  moss  shall  hide  it ;  they  alone  who  wring 
Some  secret  purpose  from  the  unwilling  gods 


122  THE   VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND. 

Survive  in  song  for  yet  a  little  while 
To  vex,  like  us,  the  dreams  of  later  men, 
Ourselves  a  dream,  and  dreamlike  all  we  did." 


II. 


So  Biorn  went  comfortless  but  for  his  thought, 
And  by  his  thought  the  more  discomforted, 
Till  Eric  Tlmrlson  kept  his  Yule-tide  feast: 
And  thither  came  he,  called  among  the  rest, 
Silent,  lone-minded,  a  church-door  to  mirth  : 
But,  ere  deep  draughts  forbade  such  serious  song 
As  the  grave  Skald  might  chant,  nor  afterj)lu*h, 
Then  Eric  looked  at  Tliorwald,  where  he  sat, 
Mute  as  a  cloud  arnid  the  stormy  hall, 
Arid  said:  "  0  Skald,  sing  now  an  olden  song, 
Such  as  our  fathers  heard  who  led  great  lives  ; 
And,  as  the  bravest  on  a  shield  is  borne 
Along  the  waving  host  that  shouts  him  king, 
So  rode  their  thrones  upon  the  thronging  seas  1  " 


THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND.  123 

Then  the  old  man  arose  ;  white-haired  he  stood, 
White-bearded,  and  with  eyes  that  looked  afar 
From  their  still  region  of  perpetual  snow, 
Beyond  the  little  smokes  and  stirs  of  men : 
His  head  was  bowed  with  gathered  flakes  of  years, 
As  winter  bends  the  sea-foreboding  pine, 
But  something  triumphed  in  his  brow  and  eye, 
Which  whoso  saw  it  could  not  see  and  crouch  : 
Loud  rang  the  emptied  beakers  as  he  mused, 
Brooding  his  eyried  thoughts  ;  then,  as  an  eagle 
Circles  smooth-winged  above  the  wind-vexed  woods, 
So  wheeled  his  soul  into  the  air  of  song 
High  o'er  the  stormy  hall ;  and  thus  he  sang : 
"  The  fletcher  for  his  arrow-shaft  picks  out 
Wood   closest-grained,    long-seasoned,   straight   as 

light ; 

And  from  a  quiver  full  of  such  as  these 
Tlie  wary  bowman,  matched  against  his  peers, 
Long  doubting,  singles  yet  once  more  the  ,best. 
Who  is  it  needs  such  flawless  shafts  as  Fate  ? 
What  archer  of  his  arrows  is  so  choice, 
Or  hits  the  white  so  surely  ?     They  are  men, 


124  THE  .VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND. 

The  chosen  of  her  quiver  ;  nor  for  her 
Will  every  reed  suffice,  or  cross-grained  stick 
At  random  from* life's  vulgar  fagot  plucked  : 
Such  answer  household  ends  ;  but  she  will  have 
Souls  straight  and  clear,  of  toughest  fibre,  sound 
Down  to  the  heart  of  heart  ;  from  these  she  strips 
All  needless  stuff,  all  sap  wood,  seasons  them, 
From  circumstance  untoward  feathers  plucks 
Crumpled  and  cheap,  and  barbs  with  iron  will : 
The  hour  that  passes  is  her  quiver-boy; 
When  she  draws  bow,  't  is  not  across  the  wind, 
Nor  'gainst  the  sun  her  haste-snatched  arrow  sings, 
For  sun  and  wind  have  plighted  faith  to  her: 
Ere  men  have  heard  the  sinew  twang,  behold 
In  the  butt's  heart  her  trembling  messenger! 

"  The  song  is  old  and  simple  that  I  sing ; 
But  old  and  simple  are  despised  as  cheap, 
Though  hardest  to  achieve  of  human  things  : 
Good  were  the  days  of  yore,  when  men  were  tried 
By  ring  of  shields,  as  now  by  viug  of  words ; 
But  while  the  gods  are  left,  and  hearts  of  men, 


THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND.  125 

And  unlocked  ocean,  still  the  days  are  good. 
Still  o'er  the  earth  hastes  Opportunity, 
Seeking  the  hardy  soul  that  seeks  for  her. 
Be  not  abroad,  nor  deaf  with  household  eares 
That  chatter  loudest  as  they  mean  the  least ; 
Swift-willed  is  thrice-willed  ;  late  means  nevermore  ; 
Impatient  is  her  foot,  nor  turns  again." 

He  ceased  ;  upon  his  bosom  sank  his  beapfl 
Sadly,  as  one  who  oft  had  seen  her  pass 
Nor  stayed  her :  and  forthwith  the  frothy  tide 
Of  interrupted  wassail  roared  along ; 
But  Biorn,  the  son  of  Heriulf,  sat  apart 
Musing,  and,  with  his  eyes  upon  the  fire, 
Saw  shapes  of  arrows,  lost  as  soon  as  seen. 
"A  ship/'  he  muttered,   "is  a  winged  bridge 
That  leadeth  every  way  to  man's  desire, 
And  ocean  the  wide  gate  to  manful  luck  "  ; 
And  then  with  that  resolve  his  heart  was  bent, 
Which,  like  a  humming  shaft,  through  many  a  stripe 
Of  day  and  night,  across  the  unpathwayed  seas 
Shot  the  brave  prow  that  cut  on  Vinland  sands 
The  first  rune  in  the  Saga  of  the  West. 


126  THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND. 


HL 


Four  weeks  they  sailed,  a  speck  in  sky-shut  seas, 
Life,  where  was  never  life  that  knew  itself, 
But  tumbled  lubber-like  in  blowing  whales  ; 
Thought,  where  the  like  had  never  been  before 
Since  Thought  primeval  brooded  the  abyss  ; 
Alone  as  men  were  never  in  the  world. 
They  saw  the  icy  foundlings  of  the  sea, 
White  cliffs  of  silence,  beautiful  by  day, 
Or  looming,  sudden-perilous,  at  night 
In  monstrous  hush  ;  or  sometimes  in  the  dark 
The  waves  broke  ominous  with  paly  gleams 
Crushed  by  the  prow  in  sparkles  of  cold  fire. 
Then  came  green  stripes  of  sea  that  promised  land 
But  brought  it  not,  and  on  the  thirtieth  day 
Low  in  the  West  were  wooded  shores  like  cloud. 
They  shouted  as  men  shout  with  sudden  hope  ; 
But  Biorn  was  silent,  such  strange  loss  there  ilk 
Between  the  dream's  fulfilment  and   the  dream, 


THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND.  127 

Such  sad  abatement  in  the  goal  attained. 
Then  Gudrida,  that  was  a  prophetess, 
Rapt  with  strange  influence  from  Atlantis,  sang  : 
Her  words  :  the  vision  was  the  dreaming  shore's. 

Looms  there  the   New  Land  : 
Locked  in  the  shadow 
Long  the  gods  shut  it, 
Niggards  of  newness 
They,  the  o'er-old. 

Little  it  looks  there, 
Slim  as  a  cloud-streak  ; 
It  shall  fold  peoples 
Even  as  a  shepherd 
Foldeth  his  flock. 

Silent  it  sleeps  now  ; 
Great  ships  shall  seek  it, 
Swarming  as  salmon  ; 
Noise  of  its  numbers 
Two  seas  shall  hear. 


128  THE  VOYAGE  TO  VIXLAND. 

Men  from  the  Northland, 
Men  from  the  Southland, 
Haste  empty-handed  ; 
No  more  than  manhood 
Bring  they,  and  hands. 

Dark  hair  and  fair  hair, 
Red  blood  and  blue  blood, 
There  shall  be  mingled  ; 
Force  of  the  ferment 
Makes  the  New  Man. 

Pick  of  all  kindreds, 
King's  blood   shall  theirs  be, 
Shoots  of  the  eldest 
Stock  upon  Midgard, 
Sons  of  the  poor. 

Them  waits  the  New  Land  ; 
They  shall  subdue  it, 
Leaving  their  sons'  sons 
Space  for  the  body, 
Space  for  the  soul. 


THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND.  129 

Leaving  their  sons'  sons 
All  things  save  song-craft, 
Plant  long  in  growing, 
Thrusting  its  tap-root 
Deep  in  the  Gone. 

Here  men  shall  grow  up 
Strong  from  self-helping  ; 
Eyes  for  the  present 
Bring  they  as  eagles', 
Blind  to  the  Past. 

They  shall  make  over 
Creed,  law,  and  custom  ; 
Driving-men,  doughty 
Builders  of  empire, 
Builders  of  men. 

Here  are  no  singers  ; 
What  should  they  sing  of? 
They,  the  unresting? 
Labor  is  ugly, 
Loathsome  is  change. 
'    6*  i 


130  THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND. 

These  the  old  gods  hate, 
Dwellers  in  dream-land, 
Drinking  delusion 
Out  of  the  empty 
Skull  of  the  Past. 

These  hate  the  old  gods,. 
Warring  against  them  ; 
Fatal  to  Odin, 
Ilere  the  wolf  Fenrir 
Lieth  in  wait. 

Here  the  gods'  Twilight 
Gathers,  earth-gulfing  ; 
Blackness  of  battle, 
Fierce  till  the  Old  World 
Flares  up  in  fire. 

Doubt  not,  my  Northmen  ; 
Fate  loves  the  fearless  ; 
Fools,  when  their  roof-tree 
Falls,  think  it  doomsday  ; 
Firm  stands  the  sky. 


THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND.  131 

Over  the  ruin 

See  I  the  promise  ; 

Crisp  waves  the  corn-field, 

Peace-walled,  the  homestead 

Waits  open-doored. 

There  lies  the  New  Land  ; 
Yours  to  behold  it, 
Not  to  possess  it ; 
Slowly  Fate's  perfect 
Fulness  shall  come. 

Then  from  your  strong  loina 
Seed  shall  be  scattered, 
Men  to  the  marrow, 
Wilderness  tamers, 
Walkers  of  waves. 

Jealous,  the  old  gods 
Shut  it  in  shadow, 
Wisely  they  ward  it, 
Egg  of  the  serpent, 
Bane  to  them  all. 


132  THE  VOYAGE   TO  VINLAND. 

Stronger  arid  sweeter 
New  gods  shall  seek  it, 
Fill  it  with  man-folk 
"Wise  for  the  future, 
Wise  from  the  past. 

Here  all  is  all  men's, 
Save  only  Wisdom  ; 
King  he  that  wins  her  ; 
Him  hail  they  helmsman, 
Highest  of  heart. 

Might  makes  no  master 
Here  any  longer  ; 
Sword  is  not  swayer  ; 
Ilere  e'en  the  gods  are 
Selfish  no  more. 

Walking  the  New  Earth, 
Lo,  a  divine  One 
Greets  all  men  godlike, 
Calls  them  his  kindred, 
He,  the  Divine. 


THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND.  133 

Is  it  Thor's  hammer 
Rays  in  his  right  hand  ? 
Weaponless  walks  he  ; 
It  is  the  White  Christ, 
Stronger  than  Thor. 

Here  shall  a  realm  rise 
Mighty  in  manhood  ; 
Justice  and  Mercy 
Here  set  a  stronghold 
Safe  without  spear. 

Weak  was  the  Old  World, 
Wearily  war-fenced  ; 
Out  of  its  ashes, 
Strong  as  the  morning, 
Springeth  the  New. 

Beauty  of  promise, 
Promise  of  beauty, 
Safe  in  the  silence 
Sleep  thou,  till  cometh 
Light  to  thy  lids  ! 


134  THE   VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND. 

Thee  shall  awaken 
Flame  from  the  furnace, 
Bath  of  all  brave  ones, 
Cleanser  of  conscience, 
Welder  of  will. 

Lowly  shall  love  thee, 
Thee,  open-handed ! 
Stalwart  shall  shield  thee, 
Thee,  worth  their  best  blood, 
Waif  of  the  West ! 

Then  shall  come  singers, 
Singing  no  swan-song, 
Birth-carols,  rather, 
Meet  for  the  man-child 
Mighty  of  bone. 


MAHMOOD   THE   IMAGE-BREAKER.  135 


MAHMOOD    THE    IMAGE-BREAKER. 

events  have  modern  meanings  ;  only  that 
survives 

Of  past  history  which  finds  kindred  in  all  hearts 
and  lives. 

Mahmood  once,  the  idol-breaker,   spreader  of  the 

Faith, 
Was   at   Sumnat  tempted    sorely,   as   the    legend 

saith. 

ILL  the  great  pagoda's  centre,  monstrous  and  ab 
horred, 

Granite  on  a  throne  of  granite,  sat  the  temple's 
lord. 

Mahmood  paused  a  moment,  silenced  by  the  silent 

face 
That,  with   eyes  of  stone   unwavering,   awed   the 

ancient  place. 


136  MAHMOOD  THE  IMAGE-BREAKER. 

Then  the  Brahmins  knelt  before  him,  by  his  doubt 

made  bold, 
Pledging   for  their   idol's   ransom  countless  gems 

and  gold. 

Gold  was  yellow  dirt  to  Mahmood,  but  of  precious 

use, 
Since  from  it  the   roots  of  power  suck  a  potent 

juice. 

"  Were  yon   stone  alone   in  question,  this  would 

please  me  well," 
Mahmood  said;  "but,  with  the  block  there,  I  my 

truth  must  sell. 

"  Wealth  and  rule  slip  down  with  Fortune,  as  her 
wheel  turns  round  ; 

He  who  keeps  his  faith,  he  only  cannot  be  dis 
crowned. 

"  Little  were  a  change  of  station,  loss  of  life  or 

crown, 
But  the  wreck  were  past  retrieving  if  the  Man  fell 

down." 


MAHMOOD  THE  IMAGE-BREAKER.  137 

So  his  iron  mace  he  lifted,  smote  with  might  and 

main, 
And  the  idol,  on  the  pavement  tumbling,  burst  in 

twain. 


Luck  obeys  the  downright  striker ;  from  the  hollow 

core, 
Fifty   times   the    Brahmins'   offer   deluged   all    the 

floor. 


138  IN  VITA  MINERVA. 


INVITA    MINERVA. 

rilllE  Bardling  came  where  by  a  river  grew 
-*-    The  pennoned  reeds,  that,  as  the  west-wind 

blew, 

Gleamed  and  sighed  plaintively,  as  if  they  knew 
What  music  slept  enchanted  in  each  stem, 
Till  Pan  should  choose  some  happy  one  of  them, 
And  with  wise  lips  enlife  it  through  and  through. 

The  Bardling  thought,  "  A  pipe  is  all  I  need  ; 
Once  I  have  sought  me  out  a  clear,  smooth  reed, 
And  shaped  it  to  my  fancy,  I  proceed 
To  breathe  such  strains  as,  yonder  'mid  the  rocks, 
The   strange    youth   blows,   that   tends   Admetus' 

flocks, 
And  all  the  maidens  will  to  me  pay  heed." 

The  summer  day  he  spent  in  questful  round, 
And  many  a  reed  he  marred,  but  never  found 


INVITA  MINERVA.  139 

A  conjuring-spell  to  free  the  imprisoned  sound ; 
At  last  his  vainly  wearied  limbs  he  laid 
Beneath  a  sacred  laurel's  flickering  shade, 
And  sleep  about  his  brain  her  cobweb  wound. 

Then  strode  the  mighty  Mother  through  his  dreams, 
Sa}dng :  "  The  reeds  along  a  thousand  streams 
Are  mine,  and  who  is  he  that  plots  and  schemes 
To  snare  the  melodies  wherewith  my  breath 
Sounds  through  the  double  pipes  of  Life  and  Death, 
Atoning  what  to  men  mad  discord  seems? 

"He  seeks  not  me,  but  I  seek  oft  in  vain 
For  him  who  shall  my  voiceful  reeds  constrain, 
And  make  them  utter  their  melodious  pain  ; 
He  flies  the  immortal  gift,  for  well  he  knows 
His  life  of  life  must  with  its  overflows 
Flood  the  unthankful  pipe,  nor  come  again. 

"Thou  fool,  who  dost  my  harmless  subjects  wrong, 
7T  is  not  the  singer's  wish  that  makes  the  song : 
The  rhythmic  beauty  wanders  dumb,  how  long, 


140 


IN  VITA   MINERVA. 


Nor  stoops  to  any  daintiest  instrument, 
Till,  found  its  mated  lips,  their  sweet  consent 
Makes   mortal   breath   than  Time    and   Fate   more 
strong. " 


THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH.        Ill 


THE   FOUNTAIN   OF   YOUTH. 

I. 

TT1  IS  a  woodland  enchanted  ! 

By  no  sadder  spirit 
Than  blackbirds  and  thrushes, 
That  whistle  to  cheer  it 
All  day  in  the  bushes, 
This  woodland  is  haunted  : 
And  in  a  small  clearing, 
Beyond  sight  or  hearing 
Of  human  annoyance, 
The  little  fount  gushes, 
First  smoothly,  then  dashes 
And  gurgles  and  flashes, 
To  the  maples  and  ashes 
Confiding  its  joyance  ; 
Unconscious  confiding, 
Then,  silent  and  glossy, 


142  THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH. 

Slips  winding  and  hiding 
Through  alder-stems  mossy, 
Through  gossamer  roots 
Fine  as  nerves, 
That  tremble,  as  shoots 
Through  their  magnetized  curves 
The  allurement  delicious 
Of  the  water's  capricious 
Thrills,  gushes,  and  swerves. 


II. 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted  ! 

I  am  writing  no  fiction  ; 

And  this  fount,  its  sole  daughter, 

To  the  woodland  was  granted 

To  pour  holy  water 

And  win  benediction  ; 

In  summer-noon  flushes, 

When  all  the  wood  hushes, 

Blue  dragon-flies  knitting 

To  and  fro  in  the  sun, 


THE   FOUNTAIN  OF   YOUTH.  143 

With  sidelong  jerk  flitting 
Sink  down  on  the  rushes, 
And,  motionless  sitting, 
Hear  it  bubble  and  run, 
Hear  its  low  inward  singing, 

r\> 

With  level  wings  swinging 
On  green  tasselled  rushes, 
To  dream  in  the  sun. 


III. 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted ! 

The  great  August  noonlight, 

Through  myriad  rifts  slanted, 

Leaf  and  bole  thickly  sprinkles  • 

With  flickering  gold  ; 

There,  in  warm  August  gloaming, 

With  quick,  silent  brightenings, 

From  meadow-lands  roaming, 

The  firefly  twinkles 

His  fitful  heat-lightnings  ; 

There  the  magical  moonlight 


144  THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH. 

With  meek,  saintly  glory 

Steeps  summit  and  wold  ; 

There  whippoorwills  plain  in  the  solitudes  Loarv 

With  lone  cries  that  wander 

Now  hither,  now  yonder, 

Like  souls  doomed  of  old 

To  a  mild  purgatory  ; 

But  through  noonlight  and  moonlight 

The  little  fount  tinkles 

Its  silver  saints'-bells, 

That  no  sprite  ill-boding 

May  make  his  abode  in 

Those  innocent  dells. 


IV. 

;T  is  a  woodland  enchanted ! 
When  the  phebe  scarce  whistles 
Once  an  hour  to  his  fellow, 
And,  where  red  lilies  flaunted, 
Balloons  from  the  thistles 
Tell  summer's  disasters, 


THE  FOUNTAIN  OF   YOUTH.  145 

The  butterflies  yellow, 

As  caught  in  an  eddy 

Of  air's  silent  ocean, 

Sink,  waver,  and  steady 

O'er  goafs-beard  and  asters, 

Like  souls  of  dead  flowers, 

With  aimless  emotion 

Still  lingering  unready 

To  leave  their  old  bowers  ; 

And  the  fount  is  no  dumber, 

But  still  gleams  and  flashes, 

And  gurgles  and  plashes, 

To  the  measure  of  summer ; 

The  butterflies  hear  it, 

And  spell-bound  are  holden, 

Still  balancing  near  it 

O'er  the  goafs-beard  so  golden. 


146        THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH. 


V. 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted  I 

A  vast  silver  willow, 

I  know  not  how  planted, 

(This  wood  is  enchanted, 

And  full  of  surprises,) 

Stands  stemming  a  billow, 

A  motionless  billow 

Of  ankle-deep  mosses ; 

Two  great  roots  it  crosses 

To  make  a  round  basin, 

And  there  the  Fount  rises  ; 

Ah,  too  pure  a  mirror 

For  one  sick  of  error 

To  see  his  sad  face  in  ! 

No  dew-drop  is  stiller 

In  its  lupin-leaf  setting 

Than  this  water  moss-bounded; 

But  a  tiny  sand-pillar 

From  the  bottom  keeps  jetting, 


THE   FOUNTAIN   OF   YOUTH.  147 

And  mermaid  ne'er  sounded 

Through  the  wreaths  of  a  shell, 

Down  amid  crimson  dulses 

In  some  dell  of  ocean, 

A  melody  sweeter 

Than  the  delicate  pulses, 

The  soft,  noiseless  metre 

The  pause  and  the  swell 

Of  that  musical  motion  : 

I  recall  it,  not  see  it ; 

Could  vision  be  clearer  ? 

Half  I  'm  fain  to  draw  nearer 

Half  tempted  to  flee  it ; 

The  sleeping  Past  wake  not, 

Beware  ! 

One  forward  step  take  not, 

Ah  !  break  not 

That  quietude  rare  ! 

By  my  step  unaffrighted 

A  thrush  hops  before  it, 

And  o'er  it 

A  birch  hangs  delighted, 


148  THE  FOUNTAIN   OF   YOUTH. 

Dipping,  dipping,  dipping  its  tremulous  Lair ; 

Pure  as  the  fountain,  once 

I  came  to  the  place, 

(How  dare  I  draw  nearer  ?) 

I  bent  o'er  its  mirror, 

And  saw  a  child's -face 

'Mid  locks  of  bright  gold  in  it ; 

Yes,  pure  as  this  fountain  once,  — 

Since,  how  much  error ! 

Too  holy  a  mirror 

For  the  man  to  behold  in  it 

Uis  harsh,  bearded  countenance  1 


VI. 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted  1 

Ah,  fly  unreturning  ! 

Yet  stay  ;  — 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted, 

Where  wonderful  chances 

Have  sway  ; 

Luck  flees  from  the  cold  one 


THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH.  149 

But  leaps  to  the  bold  one 

Half-way ; 

Why  should  I  be  daunted  ? 

Still  the  smooth  mirror  glances, 

Still  the  amber  sand  dances, 

One  look,  —  then  away ! 

0  magical  glass  ! 

Canst  keep  in  thy  bosom 

Shades  of  leaf  and  of  blossom 

When  summer  days  pass, 

So  that  when  thy  wave  hardens 

It  shapes  as  it  pleases, 

Unharmed  by  the  breezes, 

Its  fine  hanging  gardens  ? 

Hast  those  in  thy  keeping, 

And  canst  not  uncover, 

Enchantedly  sleeping, 

The  old  shade  of  thy  lover  ? 

It  is  there  !     I  have  found  it ! 

He  wakes,  the  long  sleeper  ! 

The  pool  is  grown  deeper, 

The  sand  dance  is  ending, 


150  THE  FOUNTAIN  OF   YOUTH. 

The  white  floor  sinks,  blending 
With  skies  that  below  me 
Are  deepening  and  bending, 
And  a  child's  face  alone 
That  seems  not  to  know  me, 
With  hair  that  fades  golden 
In  the  heaven-glow  round  it, 
Looks  up  at  my  own  ; 
Ah,  glimpse  through  the  portal 
That  leads  to  the  throne, 
That  opes  the  child's  olden 
Regions  Elysian  ! 
Ah,  too  holy  vision 
For  thy  skirts  to  be  holden 
By  soiled  hand  of  mortal  ! 
It  wavers,  it  scatters, 
'T  is  gone  past  recalling  ! 
A  tear's  sudden  falling 
The  magic  cup  shatters, 
Breaks  the  spell  of  the  waters, 
And  the  sand  cone  once  more, 
With  a  ceaseless  renewing, 


THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH.  151 

Its  dance  is  pursuing 

On  the  silvery  floor, 

O'er  and  o'er, 

With  a  noiseless  and  ceaseless  renewing-. 


VII. 

'Tis  a  woodland  enchanted! 

If  you  ask  me,  Where  is  it? 

I  only  can  answer, 

7T  is  past  my  disclosing  •, 

Not  to  choice  is  it  granted 

By  sure  paths  to  visit 

The  still  pool  enclosing 

Its  blithe  little  dancer  ; 

But  in  some  day,  the  rarest 

Of  many  Septembers, 

When  the  pulses  of  air  rest, 

And  all  things  lie  dreaming 

In  drowsy  haze  steaming 

From  the  wood's  glowing  embers, 

Then,  sometimes,  unheeding, 


152  THE   FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH. 

And  asking  not  whither, 

By  a  sweet  inward  leading 

My  feet  are  drawn  thither, 

And,  looking  with  awe  in  the  magical  mirror, 

I  see  through  my  tears, 

Half  doubtful  of  seeing, 

The  face  unperverted, 

The  warm  golden  being 

Of  a  child  of  five  years  ; 

And  spite  of  the  mists  and  the  error, 

And  the  days  overcast, 

Can  feel  that  I  walk  undeserted, 

But  forever  attended 

By  the  glad  heavens  that  bended 

O'er  the  innocent  past ; 

Toward  fancy  or  truth 

Doth  the  sweet  vision  win  me  ? 

Dare  I  think  that  I  cast 

In  the  fountain  of  youth 

The  fleeting  reflection 

Of  some  bygone  perfection 

That  still  lingers  in  me  ? 


YUSSOUF.  153 


YUSSOUF. 

A      STRANGER   came    one  night  to   Yussoufs 
•"•       tent, 

Saying,  "  Behold  one  outcast  and  in  dread, 
Against  whose  life  the  bow  of  power  is  bent, 
Who  flies,  and  hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head  ; 
I  come  to  thee  for  shelter  and  for  food, 
To   Yussouf,   called  through  all   our  tribes   "  The 
Good." 

"This  tent  is  mine,"  said  Yussouf,  "but  no  more 

Than  it  is  God's  ;   come  in,  and  be  at  peace  ; 

Freely  shalt  thou  partake  of  all  my  store 

As  I  of  His  who  buildeth  over  these 

Our  tents  his  glorious  roof  of  night  and  day, 

And  at  whose  door  none  ever  yet  heard  Nay." 

So  Yussouf  entertained  his  guest  that  night, 
And,  waking  him  ere  day,  said  :  "  Here  is  gold, 

7* 


154  YUSSOUF. 

My  swiftest  horse  is  saddled  for  thy  flight, 
Depart  before  the  prying  day  grow  bold." 
As  one  lamp  lights  another,  nor  grows  less, 
So  nobleness  enkindleth  nobleness. 

That  inward  light  the  stranger's  face  made  grand, 
Which  shines  from  all  self-conquest  ;  kneeling  low, 
He  bowed  his  forehead  upon  Yussouf  s  hand, 
Sobbing  :  "  0  Sheik,  I  cannot  leave  thee  so  ; 
I  will  repay  thee  ;  all  this  thou  hast  done 
Unto  that  Ibrahim  who  slew  thy  son  !  " 

"Take  thrice  the  gold/'  said  Yussouf,  "for  with 

thee 

Into  the  desert,  never  to  return, 
My  one  black  thought  shall  ride  away  from  me  ; 
First-born,  for  whom  by  day  and  night  I  yearn, 
Balanced  and  just  are  all  of  God's  decrees  ; 
Thou  art  avenged,  my  first-born,  sleep  in  peace ! " 


THE   DARKENED   MIND.  155 


THE    DARKENED    MIND. 

nnHE  fire  is  burning  clear  and  blithely, 
~*~    Pleasantly  whistles  the  winter  wind ; 
We  are  about  thee,  thy  friends  and  kindred, 
On  us  all  flickers  the  firelight  kind  ; 
There  thou  sittest  in  thy  wonted  corner 
Lone  and  awful  in  thy  darkened  mind. 

There  thou  sittest ;   now  and  then  thou  meanest ; 

Thou  dost  talk  with  what  we  cannot  see, 

Lookest  at  us  with  an  eye  so  doubtful, 

It  doth  put  us  very  far  from  thee  ; 

Th£re  thou  sittest ;  we  would  fain  be  nigh  thee, 

But  we  know  that  it  can  never  be. 

We  can  touch  thee,  still  we  are  no  nearer  ; 
Gather  round  thee,  still  thou  art  alone  ; 
The  wide  chasm  of  reason  is  between  us  ;" 


156  THE  DARKENED   MIND. 

Thou  confutes!  kindness  with  a  moan  ; 

We  can  speak  to  thee,  and  thou  canst  answer, 

Like  two  prisoners  through  a  wall  of  stone. 

Hardest  heart  would  call  it  very  awful 
When  thou  look'st  at  us  and  seest — 0  what? 
If  we  move  away,  thou  sittest  gazing 
With  those  vague  eyes  at  the  selfsame  spot, 
And  thou  mutterest,  thy  hands  thou  wringest, 
Seeing  something,  —  us  thou  seest  not. 

Strange  it  is  that,  in  this  open  brightness, 
Thou  shouldst  sit  in  such  a  narrow  cell ; 
Strange  it  is  that  thou  shouldst  be  so  lonesome 
Where  those  are  who  love  thee  all  so  well  ; 
Not  so  much  of  thee  is  left  among  us 
As  the  hum  outliving  the  hushed  bell. 


Library. 

WHAT  RAT^^tsilOSfiA   SAID. 

T)  ABBI  JEHOSHA  used  to  say 

That  God  made  angels  every  day, 
Perfect  as  Michael  and  the  rest 
First  brooded  in  creation's  nest, 
Whose  only  office  was  to  cry 
Hosanna !   once,  and  then  to  die ; 
Or  rather,  with  Life's  essence  blent, 
To  be  led  home  from  banishment. 

Rabbi  Jehosha  had  the  skill 

To  know  that  Heaven  is  in  God's  will  ; 

And  doing  that,  though  for  a  space 

One  heart-beat  long,  may  win  a  grace 

As  full  of  grandeur  and  of  glow 

As  Princes  of  the  Chariot  know. 

'T  were  glorious,  no  doubt,  to  be 
One  of  the  strong-winged  Hierarchy, 


158  WHAT  RABBI  JEHOSHA  SAID. 

To  burn  with  Seraphs,  or  to  shine 
With  Cherubs,  deathlessly  divine  ; 
Yet  I,  perhaps,  poor  earthly  clod, 
Could  I  forget  myself  in  God, 
Could  I  but  find  my  nature's  clew 
Simply  as  birds  and  blossoms  do, 
And  but  for  one  rapt  moment  know 
;T  is  Heaven  must  come,  not  we  must  go, 
Should  win  my  place  as  near  the  throne 
As  the  pearl-angel  of  its  zone, 
And  God  would  listen  'mid  the  throng 
For  my  one  breath  of  perfect  song, 
That,  in  its  simple  human  way, 
.  Said  all  the  Host  of  Heaven  could  say. 


ALL-SAINTS.  159 


ALL-SAINTS. 

/~\NE  feast,  of  holy  days  the  crest, 

^-^    I,  though  no  Churchman,  love  to  keep, 

All-Saints,  —  the  unknown  good  that  rest 

In  God's  still  memory  folded  deep  ; 
The  bravely  dumb  that  did  their  deed, 

And  scorned  to  blot  it  with  a  name, 
Men  of  the  plain  heroic  breed, 

That  loved  Heaven's  silence  more  than  fame. 

Such  lived  not  in  the  past  alone, 

But  thread  to-day  the  unheeding  street, 
And  stairs  to  Sin  and  Famine  known 

Sing  with  the  welcome  of  their  feet  ;    ^ 
The  den  they  enter  grows  a  shrine, 

The  grimy  sash  an  oriel  burns, 
Their  cup  of  water  warms  like  wine, 

Their  speech  is  filled  from  heavenly  urns. 


160  ALL-SAINTS. 

About  their  brows  to  me  appears 

An  aureole  traced  in  tenderest  light, 
The  rainbow-gleam  of  smiles  through  tears 

In  dying  eyes,  by  them  made  bright, 
Of  souls  that  shivered  on  the  edge 

Of  that  chill  ford  repassed  no  more, 
And  in  their  mercy  felt  the  pledge 

And  sweetness  of  the  farther  shore. 


A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN  TO  MY  FIRE.        161 


A   WINTER-EVENING  HYMN   TO   MY  FIRE. 


BEAUTY  on  my  hearth-stone  blazing  ! 
To-night  the  triple  Zoroaster 
Shall  my  prophet  be  and  master  : 
To-night  will  I  pure  Magian  be, 
Hymns  to  thy  sole  honor  raising, 
While  thou  leapest  fast  and  faster, 
Wild  with  self-delighted  glee, 
Or  sink'st  low  and  glowest  faintly 
As  an  aureole  still  and  saintly, 
Keeping  cadence  to  my  praising 
Thee  !  still  thee  !  and  only  thee  ! 

ii. 

Elfish  daughter  of  Apollo ! 
Thee,  from  thy  father  stolen  and  bound 
To  serve  in  Vulcan's  clangorous  smithy 
Prometheus  (primal  Yankee)  found, 


162        A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN  TO  MY  FIRE. 

And,  when  he  had  tampered  with  thee, 
(Too  confiding  little  maid!) 
In  a  reed's  precarious  hollow 
To  our  frozen  earth  conveyed  : 
For  he  swore  I  know  not  what ; 
Endless  ease  should  be  thy  lot, 
Pleasure  that  should  never  falter, 
Life-long  play,  and  not  a  duty 
Save  to  hover  o'er  the  altar, 
Vision  .of  celestial  beauty, 
Fed  with  precious  woods  and  spices, 
Then,  perfidious  !   having  got 
•  Thee  in  the  net  of  his  devices, 
Sold  thee  into  endless  slavery, 
Made  thee  a  drudge  to  boil  the  pot, 
Thee,  Helios'  daughter,  who  dost  bear 
His  likeness  in  thy  golden  hair  ; 
Thee,  by  nature  wild  and  wavery, 
Palpitating,  evanescent 
As  the  shade  of  Dian's  crescent, 
Life,  motion,  gladness,  everywhere ! 


A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN  TO   MY  FIRE.        163 

m. 

Fathom  deep  men  bury  thee 
In  the  furnace  dark  and  still, 
There,  with  dreariest  mockery, 
Making  thee  eat,  against  thy  will, 
Blackest  Pennsylvanian  stone  ; 
But  thou  dost  avenge  thy  doom, 
For,  from  out  thy  catacomb, 
Day  and  night  thy  wrath  is  blown 
In  a  withering  simoom, 
And,  adown  that  cavern  drear, 
Thy  black  pitfall  in  the  floor, 
Staggers  the  lusty  antique  cheer, 
Despairing,  and  is  seen  no  more ! 

IV. 

Elfish  I  may  rightly  name  thee  ; 
We  enslave,  but  cannot  tame  thee  ; 
With  fierce  snatches,  now  and  then, 
Thou  pluckest  at  thy  right  again, 
And  thy  down-trod  instincts  savage 


164        A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN  TO  MY  FIRE. 

To  stealthy  insurrection  creep, 
While  thy  wittol  masters  sleep, 
And  burst  in  undiscerning  ravage  ; 
Then  how  thou  shak'st  thy  bacchant  locks! 
While  brazen  pulses,  far  and  near, 
Throb  thick  and  thicker  wild  with  fear 
And  dread  conjecture,  till  the  drear 
Disordered  clangor  every  steeple  rocks  ! 

v. 

But  when  we  make  a  friend  of  thee, 
And  admit  thee  to  the  hall 
On  our  nights  of  festival, 
Then,  Cinderella,  who  could  see 
In  thee  the  kitchen's  stunted  thrall  ? 
Once  more  a  Princess  lithe  and  "tall, 
Thou  dancest  with  a  whispering  tread, 
While  the  bright  marvel  of  thy  head 
In  crinkling  gold  floats  all  abroad, 
And  gloriously  dost  vindicate 
The  legend  of  thy  lineage  great, 
Earth-exiled  daughter  of  the  Pythian  god  ! 


A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN   TO  MY  FIRE.        165 

Now  in  the  ample  chimney-place, 
To  honor  thy  acknowledged  race, 
We  crown  thee  high  with  laurel  good, 
Thy  shining  father's  sacred  wood, 
Which,  guessing  thy  ancestral  right, 
Sparkles  and  snaps  his  dumb  delight, 
And,  at  thy  touch,  poor  outcast  one, 
Feels  through  his  gladdened  fibres  go 
The  tingle  and  thrill  and  vassal  glow 
Of  instincts  loyal  to  the  sun. 

VI. 

0  thou  of  home  the  guardian  Lar, 

And,  when  our  earth  hath  wandered  far 

Into  the  cold,  and  deep  snow  covers 

The  walks  of  our  New  England  lovers, 

Their  sweet  secluded  evening-star! 

'T  was  with  thy  rays  the  English  Muse 

Ripened  her  mild  domestic  hues ; 

'T  was  by  thy  flicker  that  she  conned 

The  fireside  wisdom  that  enrings 

With  light  from  heaven  familiar  things  ; 


166        A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN  TO  MY  FIRE. 

By  thee  she  found  the  homely  faith 

In  whose  mild  eyes  thy  comfort  stay'th, 

When  Death,  extinguishing  his  torch, 

Gropes  for  the  latch-string  in  the  porch  ; 

The  love  that  wanders  not  beyond 

His  earliest  nest,  but  sits  and  sings 

While  children  smooth  his  patient  wings  ; 

Therefore  with  thee  I  love  to  read 

Our  brave  old  poets  :   at  thy  touch  how  stirs 

Life  in  the  withered  words  !  how  swift  recede 

Time's  shadows  !  and  how  glows  again 

Through  its  dead  mass  the  incandescent  verse, 

As  when  upon  the  anvils  of  the  brain 

It  glittering  lay,  cyclopically  wrought 

By  the  fast-throbbing   hammers  of  the  poet's 

thought! 

Thou  murmurest,  too,  divinely  stirred, 
The  aspirations  unattained, 
The  rhythms  so  rathe  and  delicate, 
They  bent  and  strained 
And  broke,  beneath  the  sombre  weight 
Of  any  airiest  mortal  word. 


A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN   TO  MY  FIRE.      -167 

vn. 

What  warm  protection  dost  thou  bend 

Round  curtained  talk  of  friend  with  friend, 

While  the  gray  snow-storm,  held  aloof, 

To  softest  outline  rounds  the  roof, 

Or  the  rude  North  with  baffled  strain 

Shoulders  the  frost-starred  window-pane ! 

Now  the  kind  nymph  to  Bacchus  borne 

By  Morpheus'  daughter,  she  that  seems 

Gifted  upon  her  natal  morn 

By  him  with  fire,  by  her  with  dreams, 

Nicotia,  dearer  to  the  Muse 

Than  all  the  grapes'  bewildering  juice, 

We  worship,  unforbid  of  thee ; 

And,  as  her  incense  floats  and  curls 

In  airy  spires  and  wayward  whirls, 

Or  poises  on  its  tremulous  stalk 

A  flower  of  frailest  revery, 

So  winds  and  loiters,  idly  free, 

The  current  of  un guided  talk, 

Now  laughter-rippled,  and  now  caught 


168        A  WINTER-EVENING   HYMN  TO  MY  FIRE. 

In  smooth,  dark  pools  of  deeper  thought. 

Meanwhile  thou  mellowest  every  word, 

A  sweetly  unobtrusive  third  ; 

For  thou  hast  magic  beyond  wine, 

To  unlock  natures  each  to  each  ; 

The  unspoken  thought  thou  canst  divine ; 

Thou  fillest  the  pauses  of  the  speech 

With  whispers  that  to  dream-laud  reach, 

And  frozen  fancy-springs  unchain 

In  Arctic  outskirts  of  the  brain ; 

Sun  of  all  inmost  confidences ! 

To  thy  rays  doth  the  heart  unclose 

Its  formal  calyx  of  pretences, 

That  close  against  rude  day's  offences, 

And  open  its  shy  midnight  rose. 

vra. 

Thou  boldest  not  the  master  key 

With  which  thy  Sire  sets  free  the  mystic  gatos 

Of  Past  and  Future  :   not  for  common  fates 

Do  they  wide  open  fling, 

And,  with  a  far-heard  ring, 


A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN  TO   MY  FIRE.        169 

Swing  back  their  willing  valves  melodiously ; 

Only  to  ceremonial  days, 

And  great  processions  of  imperial  song 

That  set  the  world  at  gaze, 

Doth  such  high  privilege  belong  : 

But  thou  a  postern-door  canst  ope 

To  humbler  chambers  of  the  selfsame  palace 

Where  Memory  lodges,  and  her  sister  Hope, 

Whose  being  is  but  as  a  crystal  chalice 

Which,  with  her  various  mood,  the  elder  fills 

Of  joy  or  sorrow, 

So  coloring  as  she  wills 

With  hues  of  yesterday  the  unconscious  morrow, 

IX. 

Thou  sinkest,  arid  my  fancy  sinks  with  thee : 

For  thee  I  took  the  idle  shell, 

And  struck  the  unused  chords  again, 

But  they  are  gone  who  listened  well  ; 

Some  are  in  heaven,  and  all  are  far  from  me  : 

Even  as  I  sing,  it  turns  to  pain, 

.A.nd  with  vain  tears  my  eyelids  throb  and  swell : 

8 


170        A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN  TO  MY   FIRE. 

Enough  ;  I  come  not  of  the  race 

That  hawk  their  sorrows  in  the  market-place. 

Earth  stops  the  ears  I  best  had  loved  to  please  ; 

Then  break,  ye  untuned  chords,  or  rust  in  peace! 

As  if  a  white-haired  actor  should  come  back 

Some  midnight  to  the  theatre  void  and  black, 

And  there  rehearse  his  youth's  great  part 

'Mid  thin  applauses  of  the  ghosts, 

So  seems  it  now :  ye  crowd  upon  my  heart, 

And  I  bow  down  in  silence,  shadowy  hosts! 


FANCY'S   CASUISTRY.  171 


FANCY'S    CASUISTRY. 

TTQW  struggles  with  the  tempest's  swells 

That  warning  of  tumultuous  bells  ! 
The  fire  is  loose  !   and  frantic  knells 

Throb  fast  and  faster, 
As  tower  to  tower  confusedly  tells 
News  of  disaster. 

But  on  my  far-off  solitude 

No  harsh  alarums  can  intrude  ; 

The  terror  comes  to  me  subdued 

And  charmed  by  distance, 
To  deepen  the  habitual  mood 

Of  my  existence. 

Are  those,  I  muse,  the  Easter  chimes  ? 
And  listen,  weaving  careless  rhymes 
While  the  loud  city's  griefs  and  crimes 
Pay  gentle  allegiance 


172  FANCY'S  CASUISTRY. 

To  the  fine  quiet  that  sublimes 
These  dreamy  regions. 

And  when  the  storm  o'erwhelms  the  shore, 
I  watch  entranced  as,  o'er  and  o'er, 
The  light  revolves  amid  the  roar 

So  still  and  saintly, 
Now  large  and  near,  now  more  and  more 

Withdrawing  faintly. 

This,  too,  despairing  sailors  see 
Flash  out  the  breakers  'ueath  their  lee 
In  sudden  snow,  then  lingeriugly 

Wane  tow'rd  eclipse, 
While  through  the  dark  the  shuddering  sea 

Gropes  for  the  ships. 

And  is  it  right,  this  mood  of  mind 
That  thus,  in  revery  enshrined, 
Can  in  the  world  mere  topics  find 

For  musing  stricture, 
Seeing  the  life  of  humankind 

Only  as  picture  ? 


FANCY'S  CASUISTRY.  173 

The  events  in  line  of  battle  go  ; 
In  vain  for  me  their  trumpets  blow 
As  unto  him  that  lieth  low 

In  death's  dark  arches, 
And  through  the  sod  hears  throbbing  slow 

The  rnuflled  marches. 

0  Duty,  am  I  dead  to  thee 
In  this  my  cloistered  ecstasy, 
In  this  lone  shallop  on  the  sea 

That  drifts  tow'rd  Silence? 
And  are  those  visioned  shores  I  see 

But  sirens'  islands  ? 

My  Dante  frowns  with  lip-locked  mien, 
As  who  would  say,  "  'T  is  those,  I  ween, 
Whom  lifelong  armor-chafe  makes  lean 

.  That  win  the  laurel  "  ; 
But  where  is  Truth  ?     What  does  it  mean, 
The  world-old  quarrel  ? 

Such  questionings  are  idle  air : 
Leave  what  to  do  and  what  to  spare 


174  FANCY'S  CASUISTRY. 

To  the  inspiring  moment's  care, 
Nor  ask  for  payment 

Of  fame  or  gold,  but  just  to  wear 
Unspotted  raiment. 


TO  MR.  JOHN  BARTLETT.  175 


TO    MR.  JOHN    BARTLETT, 

WHO  HAD  SENT  ME  A  SEVEN-POUND  TROUT. 

FIT  for  an  Abbot  of  Theleme, 
For  the  whole  Cardinals'  College,  or 
The  Pope  himself  to  see  in  dream 
Before  his  lenten  vision  gleam, 

He  lies  there,  the  sogdologer! 

His  precious  flanks  with  stars  besprent, 

Worthy  to  swim  in  Castaly ! 
The  friend  by  whom  such  gifts  are  sent, 
For  him  shall  bumpers  full  be  spent, 
His  health!   be  Luck  his  fast  ally! 

I  see  him  trace  the  wayward  brook 

Amid  the  forest  mysteries, 
Where  at  their  shades  shy  aspens  look, 
Or  where,  with  many  a  gurgling  crook, 

It  croons  its  woodland  histories. 


176  TO  MR.  JOHN   BARTLETT. 

I  see  leaf-shade  and  sun-fleck  lend 
Their  tremulous,  sweet  vicissitude 

To  smooth,  dark  pool,  to  crinkling  bend, 

(0,  stew  him,  Ann,  as  't  were  your  friend, 
With  amorous  solicitude  !) 

I  see  him  step  with  caution  due, 

Soft  as  if  shod  with  moccasins, 
Grave  as  in  church,  for  who  plies  you, 
Sweet  craft,  is  safe  as  in  a  pew 

From  all  our  common  stock  o'  sins. 

The  unerring  fly  I  see  him  cast, 

That  as  a  rose-leaf  falls  as  soft, 
A  flash  !   a  whirl  !   he  has  him  fast  I 
We  tyros,  how  that  struggle  last 
Confuses  and  appalls  us  oft. 

Unfluttered  he  :   calm  as  the  sky 
Looks  on  our  tragi-comedies, 

This  way  and  that  he  lets  him  fly, 

A  s'unbeam-shuttle,  then  to  die 

Lands  him,  with  cool  aplomb,  at  ease. 


TO  MR.  JOHN  BARTLETT.  177 

The  friend  who  gave  our  board  such  gust, 
Life's  care,  may  he  o'crstcp  it  half, 

And,  when  Death  hooks  him,  as  he  must, 

He  '11  do  it  handsomely,  I  trust, 

And  John  H—    -  write  his  epitaph  I 

0,  born  beneath  the  Fishes'  sign, 

Of  constellations  happiest, 
May  he  somewhere  with  Walton  dine, 
May  Horace  send  him  Massic  wine, 

And  Burns  Scotch  drink,  the  nappiest ! 

And  when  they  come  his  deeds  to  weigh, 

And  how  he  used  the  talents  his, 
One  trout-scale  in  the  scales  he  '11  lay 
(If  trout  had  scales),  and  't  will  outsway 
The  wrong  side  of  the  balances. 


178  ODE  TO  HAPPINESS. 


ODE    TO    HAPPINESS. 

PIRIT,  that  rarely  comest  now 
And  only  to  contrast  ray  gloom, 
Like  rainbow-feathered  birds  that  bloom 
A  moment  on  some  autumn  bough 
That,  with  the  spurn  of  their  farewell, 
Sheds  its  last  leaves,  —  thou  once  didst  dwell 

With  me  year-long,  and  make  intense 
To  boyhood's  wisely  vacant  days 
Their  fleet  but  all-sufficing  grace 
Of  trustful  inexperience, 
While  soul  could  still  transfigure  sense, 
And  thrill,  as  with  love's  first  caress, 
At  life's  mere  unexpectedness. 

Days  when  my  blood  would  leap  and  run 
As  full  of  sunshine  as  a  breeze, 
Or  spray  tossed  up  by  Summer  seas 
That  doubts  if  it  be  sea  or  sun  ! 


ODE  TO  HAPPINESS.  179 

Days  that  flew  swiftly  like  the  band 
That  played  in  Grecian  games  at  strife, 

And  passed  from  eager  hand  to  hand 
The  onward-dancing  torch  of  life  ! 

Wing-footed  !  thou  abid'st  with  him 
Who  asks  it  not ;  but  he  who  hath 
Watched  o'er  the  waves  thy  waning  path, 

Shall  nevermore  behold  returning 

Thy  high-heaped  canvas  shoreward  yearning! 

Thou  first  reveal'st  to  us  thy  face 

Turned  o'er  the  shoulder's  parting  grace, 
A  moment  glimpsed,  then  seen  no  more,  — 

Thou  whose  swift  footsteps  we  can  trace 
Away  from  every  mortal  door ! 

Nymph  of  the  unreturning  feet, 

How  may  I  win  thee  back  ?    But  no, 
I  do  thee  wrong  to  call  thee  so  ; 

JT  is  I  am  changed,  not  thou  art  fleet: 

The  man  thy  presence  feels  again, 

Not  in  the  blood,  but  in  the  brain, 


180  ODE  TO  HAPPINESS. 

Spirit,  that  lov'st  the  upper  air 

Serene  and  passionless  and  rare, 

Such  as  on  mountain  heights  we  find 
And  wide-viewed  uplands  of  the  mind  ; 

Or  such  as  scorns  to  coil  and  sing 

Round  any  but  the  eagle's  wing 

Of  souls  that  with  long  upward  beat 
Have  won  an  undisturbed  retreat 

Where,  poised  like  winged  victories, 

They  mirror  in  relentless  eyes 

The  life  broad-basking  'neath  their  feet, 

Man  ever  with  his  Now  at  strife, 

Pained  with  first  gasps  of  earthly  air, 
Then  praying  Death  the  last  to  spare, 

Still  fearful  of  the  ampler  life.- 

Not  unto  them  dost  thou  consent 
Who,  passionless,  can  lead  at  ease 

A  life  of  unalloyed  content, 

A  life  like  that  of  land-locked  seas, 

That  feel  no  elemental  gush 

Of  tidal  forces,  no  fierce  rush 


ODE  TO  HAPPINESS.  181 

Of  storm  deep-grasping  scarcely  spent 

'Twixt  continent  and  continent. 
Such  quiet  souls  have  never  known 

Thy  truer  inspiration,  thou 

Who  lov'st  to  feel  upon  thy  brow 
Spray  from  the  plunging  vessel  thrown 

Grazing  the  tusked  lee  shore,  the  cliff 
That  o'er  the  abrupt  gorge  holds  its  breath, 

Where  the  frail  hair-breadth  of  an  if 
Is  all  that  sunders  life  and  death  : 
These,  too,  are  cared-for,  and  round  these 
Bends  her  mild  crook  thy  sister  Peace ; 

These  in  un vexed  dependence  lie, 

Each  'neath  his  strip  of  household  sky  ; 
O'er  these  clouds  wander,  and  the  blue 
Hangs  motionless  the  whole  day  through  ; 

Stars  rise  for  them,  and  moons  grow  large 
And  lessen  in  such  tranquil  wise 
As  joys  and  sorrows  do  that  rise 

Within  their  nature's  sheltered  marge  ; 
Their  hours  into  each  other  flit 

Like  the  leaf-shadows  of  the  vine 


182  ODE  TO  HAPPINESS. 

And  fig-tree  under  which  they  sit, 
And  their  still  lives  to  heaven  incline 

With  an  unconscious  habitude, 
Unhistoried  as  smokes  that  rise 

From  happy  hearths  and  sight  elude 
In  kindred  blue  of  morning  skies. 

Wa}rward  !    when  once  we  feel  thy  lack, 
7T  is  worse  than  vain  to  woo  thee  back ! 

Yet  there  is  one  who  seems  to  be 
Thine  elder  sister,  in  whose  eyes 
A  faint  far  northern  light  will  rise 

Sometimes,  and  bring  a  dream  of  thee ; 
She  is  not  that  for  which  youth  hoped, 

But  she  hath  blessings  all  her  own, 
Thoughts  pure  as  lilies  newly  oped, 

And  faith  'to  sorrow  given  alone  ; 
Almost  I  deem  that  it  is  thou 
Come  back  with  graver  matron  brow, 

With  deepened  eyes  and  bated  breath, 

Like  one  that  somewhere  hath  met  Death 
But  "  No,"  she  answers,  "  I  am  she 


ODE  TO  HAPPINESS.  183 

Whom  the  gods  love,  Tranquillity  ; 

That  other  whom  you  seek  forlorn 

Half  earthly  was  ;  but  I  am  born 
Of  the  immortals,  and  our  race 
Wear  still  some  sadness  on  our  face  : 

lie  wins  me  late,  but  keeps  me  long, 
Who,  dowered  with  every  gift  of  passion, 
In  that  fierce  flame  can  forge  and  fashion 

Of  sin  arid  self  the  anchor  strong  ; 
Can  thence  compel  the  driving  force 
Of  daily  life's  mechanic  course, 
Nor  less  the  nobler  energies 
Of  needful  toil  and  culture  wise  ; 
Whose  soul  is  worth  the  tempter's  lure 
Who  can  renounce,  and  yet  endure, 
To  him  I  come,  not  lightly  wooed, 
But  won  by  silent  fortitude. " 


184  VILLA  FRANCA. 


VILLA   FRANCA. 

1859. 

"AIT  a  little:   do  ice  not  wait? 

Louis  Napoleon  is  not  Fate, 
Francis  Joseph  is  not  Time  ; 
There  's  One  hath  swifter  feet  than  Crime ; 
Cannon-parliaments  settle  naught ; 
Venice  is  Austria's,  —  whose  is  Thought  ? 
Minie  is  good,  but,  spite  of  change, 
Gutenberg's  gun  has  the  longest  range. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin  ! 

Lachesis,  twist!  and  Atropos,  sever! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

Wait,  we  say :  our  years  are  long ; 
Men  are  weak,  but  Man  is  strong  ; 
Since  the  stars  first  curved  their  rings, 
We  have  looked  on  many  things ; 


VILLA  FRANCA.  185 

Great  wars  come  and  great  wars  go, 

Wolf-tracks  light  on  polar  snow  ; 

We  shall  see  him  come  and  gone, 

This  second-hand  Napoleon. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin ! 
Lachesis,  twist !  and  Atropos,  sever  I 
In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 
The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 


We  saw  the  elder  Corsican, 

And  Clotho  muttered  as  she  span, 

While  crowned  lackeys  bore  the  train, 

Of  the  pinchbeck  Charlemagne  : 

if  Sister,  stint  not  length  of  thread  ! 

Sister,  stay  the  scissors  dread! 

On  Saint  Helen's  granite  bleak, 

Hark,  the  vulture  whets  his  beak  !  " 

Spin,  spin,.  Clotho,  spin  ! 

Lachesis,  twist !  and  Atropos,  sever ! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in', 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 


186  VILLA  FRANCA. 

The  Bonapartes,  we  know  their  bees 
That  wade  in  honey  red  to  the  knees ; 
Their  patent  reaper,  its  sheaves  sleep  sound 
In  dreamless  garners  underground  ; 
We  know  false  glory's  spendthrift  race 
Pawning  nations  for  feathers  and  lace  ; 
It  may  be  short,  it  may  be  long, 
"  'T  is  reckoning-day  !  "  sneers  unpaid  Wrong. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin  ! 

Lachesis,  twist !  and  Atropos,  sever ! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 


The  Cock  that  wears  the  Eagle's  skin 
Can  promise  what  he  ne'er  could  win  ; 
Slavery  reaped  for  fine  words  sown, 
System  for  all,  and  rights  for  none, 
Despots  atop,  a  wild  clan  below, 
Such  is  the  Gaul  from  long  ago ; 
Wash  the  black  from  the  Ethiop's  face, 
Wash  the  past  out  of  man  or  race  ! 


VILLA  FRANCA.  187 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin! 
Lachesis,  twist!  and  Atropos,  sever! 
In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 
The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

'Neath  Gregory's  throne  a  spider  swings, 
And  snares  the  people  for  the  kings ; 
"  Luther  is  dead  ;  old  quarrels  pass  ; 
The  stake's  black  scars  are  healed  with  grass  "  ; 
So  dreamers  prate  ;  did  man  e'er  live 
Saw  priest  or  woman  yet  forgive  ? 
But  Luther's  broom  is  left,  and  eyes 
Peep  o'er  their  creeds  to  where  it  lies. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin! 

Lachesis,  twist !  and  Atropos,  sever ! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

Smooth  sails  the  ship  of  either  realm, 
Kaiser  and  Jesuit  at  the  helm  ; 
We  look  down  the  depths,  and  mark 
Silent  workers  in  the  dark 


188  VILLA    FRANCA. 

Building  slow  the  sharp-tusked  reefs, 

Old  instincts  hardening  to  new  beliefs  ; 

Patience  a  little  ;  learn  to  wait ; 

Hours  are  long  on  the  clock  of  Fate. 
Spin,  spin,  Ciotho,  spin  ! 
Lachesis,  twist!  and  Atropos,  sever 1 
Darkness  is  strong,  and  so  is  Sin, 
But  only  God  endures  forever ! 


THE  MINER. 


189 


THE    MINER. 

DOWN  'mid  the  tangled  roots  of  things 
That  coil  about  the  central  fire, 
I  seek  for  that  which  giveth  wings 
To  stoop,  not  soar,  to  my  desire. 

Sometimes  I  hear,  as  't  were  a  sigh, 
The  sea's  deep  yearning  far  above, 

"Thou  hast  the  secret  not,"  I  cry, 
"  In  deeper  deeps  is  hid  my  Love.'7 

They  think  I  burrow  from  the  sun, 
In  darkness,  all  alone,  and  weak  ; 

Such  loss  were  gain  if  He  were  won, 
For  't  is  the  sun's  own  Sun  I  seek. 

"The  earth,"  they  murmur,   "is  the  tomb 
That  vainly  sought  his  life  to  prison  ; 


190  THE  MINER. 

"Why  grovel  longer  in  the  gloom  ? 
He  is  not  here  ;   he  hath  arisen." 

More  life  for  me  where  he  hath  lain 
Hidden  while  ye  believed  him  dead, 

Than  in  cathedrals  cold  and  vain, 
Built  on  loose  sands  of  It  is  said. 

My  search  is  for  the  living  gold  ; 

Him  I  desire  who  dwells  recluse, 
And  not  his  image  worn  and  old, 

Day-servant  of  our  sordid  use. 

If  him  I  find  not,  yet  I  find 

The  ancient  joy  of  cell  and  church, 

The  glimpse,  the  surety  undefined, 
The  unquenched  ardor  of  the  search. 

Happier  to  chase  a  flying  goal 

Than  to  sit  counting  laurelled  gains, 

To  guess  the  Soul  within  the  soul 
•Than  to  be  lord  of  what  remains. 


THE   MINER.  1'J  1 

Hide  still,  best  Good,  in  subtile  wise, 
Beyond  my  nature's  utmost  scope  ; 

Be  ever  absent  from  mine  eyes 
To  be  twice  present  in  my  hope! 


192  GOLD  EGG. 


GOLD   EGG  :    A    DREAM-FANTASY. 

HOW  A  STUDENT  IN  SEARCH  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL,  FELL 
ASLEEP  IN  DRESDEN  OVER  HERR  PROFESSOR  DOCTOR 
VISCHER'S  WISSENSCHAFT  DES  SCIIO'NEN,  AND  WHAI 

CAME    THEREOF. 

T    SWAM  with  undulation  soft, 
-*-   Adrift  on  Vischer's  ocean, 
And,  from  my  cockboat  up  aloft, 
Sent  down  my  mental  plummet  oft 
In  hope  to  reach  a  notion. 

But  from  the  metaphysic  sea 

No  bottom  was  forthcoming-, 
And  all  the  while  (how  drearily!) 
In  one  eternal  note  of  B 

My  German  stove  kept  humming1. 

"What  's  Beauty?"  mused  I  ;  "is  it  told 
By  synthesis  ?    analysis  ? 


GOLD  EGG.  193 

Have  you  not  made  us  lead  of  gold  ? 
To  feed  your  crucible,  not  sold 
Our  temple's  sacred  chalices  ?  " 

Then  o'er  my  senses  came  a  change  ; 

My  book  seemed  all  traditions, 
Old  legends  of  profoundest  range, 
Diablery,  and  stories 'strange 

Of  goblins,  elves,  magicians. 

Old  gods  in  modern  saints  I  found, 
Old  creeds  in  strange  disguises  ; 
I  thought  them  safely  underground, 
And  here  they  were,  all  safe  and  sound, 
Without  a  sign  of  phthisis. 

Truth  was,  my  outward  eyes  were  closed, 

Although  I  did  not  know  it  ; 
Deep  into  dream-land  I  had  dozed, 
And  so  was  happily  transposed 

From  proser  into  poet. 


194  GOLD  EGG. 

So  what  I  read  took  flesh  and  blood, 

And  turned  to  living  creatures  ; 
The  words  were  but  the  dingy  bud 
That  bloomed,  like  Adam,  from  the  mud, 
To  human  forms  and  features. 

I  saw  how  Zeus  was  lodged  once  more    * 

By  Baucis  and  Philemon  ; 
.  The  text  said,  "  Not  alone  of  yore, 
But  every  day,  at  every  door, 

Knocks  still  the  masking  Demon." 

DAIMON  't  was  printed  in  the  book, 

Acid,  as  I  read  it  slowly, 
The.  letters  stirred  and  changed,  and  took 
Jove's  stature,  the  Olympian-  look 

Of  painless  melancholy. 

lie  paused  upon  the  threshold  worn  : 
"  With  coin  I  cannot  pay  you  ; 

Yet  would  I  fain  make  some  return  ; 

The  gift  for  cheapness  do  not  spurn, 
Accept  this  hen,  I  pray  you. 


GOLD  EGG.  195 

"Plain  feathers  wears  my  Hemera, 

And  has  from  ages  olden  ; 
She  makes  her  nest  in  common  hay, 
And  yet,  of  all  the  birds  that  lay, 

Her  eggs  alone  are  golden. " 

He  turned,  and  could  no  more  be  seen  ; 

Old  Baucis  stared  a  moment, 
Then  tossed  poor  Partlet  on  the  green, 
And  with  a  tone,  half  jest,  half  spleen, 

Thus  made  her  housewife's  comment : 

"  The  stranger  had  a  queerish  face, 
His  smile  was  hardly  pleasant,    • 
And,  though  he  meant  it  for  a  grace, 
Yet  this  old  hen  of  barnyard  race 

< 

Was  but  a  stingy  present. 

"  She  's  quite  too  old  for  laying  eggs, 

Nay,  even  to  make  a  soup  of  ; 
One  only  needs  to  see  her  legs,  — 
You  might  as  well  boil  down  the  pega 

I  made  the  brood-hen's  coop  of! 


196  GOLD  EGG. 

"  Some  eighteen  score  of  such  do  I 

Raise  every  year,  her  sisters  ; 
Go,  in  the  woods  your  fortunes  try, 
All  day  for  one  poor  earthworm  pry, 

And  scratch  your  toes  to  blisters !  " 

Philemon  found  the  rede  was  good, 

And,  turning  on  the  poor  hen, 
IJe  clapt  his  hands,  and  stamped,  and  shooed, 
Hunting  the  exile  tow'rd  the  wood, 

To  house  with  snipe  and  moor-hen. 

A  poet  saw  and  cried:  "Hold!   hold! 

What  are  you  doing,  madman  ? 
Spurn  you  more  wealth  than  can  be  told, 
The  fowl  that  lays  the  eggs  of  gold, 

Because  she  's  plainly  clad,  man  ?  " 

To  him  Philemon  :  "  I  '11  not  balk 

Thy  will  with  any  shackle  ; 
Wilt  add  a  burden  to  thy  walk  ? 
There  !  take  her  without  further  talk  ; 

You  're  both  but  fit  to  cackle  !  " 


GOLD  EGG.  197 

But  scarce  the  poet  touched  the  bird, 

It  swelled  to  stature  regal  ; 
And  when  her  cloud-wide  wings  she  stirred, 
A  whisper  as  of  doom  was  heard, 

'T  was  Jove's  bolt-bearing  eagle. 

As  when  from  far-off  cloud-bergs  springs 

A  crag,  and,  hurtling  under, 
From  cliff  to  cliff  the  rumor  flings, 
So  she  fr.om  flight-foreboding  wings 

Shook  out  a  murmurous  thunder. 

She  gripped  the  poet  to  her  breast, 

And,  ever  upward  soaring, 
Earth  seemed  a  new  moon  in  the  west, 
And  then  one  light  among  the  rest 

Where  squadrons  lie  at  mooring. 

How  tell  to  what  heaven-hallowed  seat 

The  eagle  bent  his  courses  ? 
The  waves  that  on  its  bases  beat, 
The  gales  that  round  ft  weave  and  fleet, 

Are  life's  creative  forces. 


198  GOLD   EGG. 

Here  was  the  bird's  primeval  nest, 

High  on  a  promontory 
Star-pharosed,  where  she  takes  her  rest 
To  brood  new  seons  'neath  her  breast, 

The  future's  unfledged  glory. 

I  know  not  how,  but  I  was  there 

All  feeling,  hearing,  seeing ; 
It  was  not  wind  that  stirred  my  hair 
But  living  breath,  the  essence  rare 
Of  unembodied  being. 

And  in  the  nest  an  egg  of  gold 

Lay  soft  in  self-made  lustre  ; 
Gazing  whereon,  what  depths  untold 
Within,  what  marvels  manifold, 
Seemed  silently  to  muster! 

Daily  such  splendors  to  confront 
Is  still  to  me  and  you  sent? 

It  glowed  as  when  Saint  Peter's  front, 

• 
Illumed,  forgets  its  stony  wont, 

And  seems  to  throb  translucent. 


GOLD   EGG.  199 

One  saw  therein  the  life  of  man, 

(Or  so  the  poet  found  it,) 
The  yolk  and  white,  conceive  who  can, 
Were  the  glad  earth,  that,  floating,  span 

In  the  glad  heaven  around  it. 

I  knew  this  as  one  knows  in  dream, 

Where  no  effects  to  causes 
Are  chained  as  in  our  work-day  scheme, 
And  then  was  wakened  by  a  scream 

That  seemed  to  come  from  Baucis. 

"  Bless  Zeus  !  "  she  cried,  "  I  7m  safe  below  !  " 

First  pale,  then  red  as  coral ; 
And  I,  still  drowsy,  pondered  slow, 
And  seemed  to  find,  but  hardly  know, 

Something  like  this  for* moral. 

Each  day  the  world  is  born  anew 

For  him  who  takes  it  rightly  ; 
Not  fresher  that  which  Adam  knew,' 
Not  sweeter  that  whose  moonlit  dew 

Entranced  Arcadia  nightly. 


200  GOLD  EGG. 

Rightly  ?     That  's  simply :  't  is  to  see 
Some  substance  casts  these  shadows 
Which  we  call  Life  and  History, 
That  aimless  seem  to  chase  and  flee 
Like  wind-gleams  over  meadows. 

Simply  ?  That  's  nobly  :  7t  is  to  know 

That  God  may  still  be  met  with, 
Nor  groweth  old,  nor  doth  bestow 
These  senses  fine,  this  brain  aglow, 
To  grovel  and  forget  with. 

Beauty,  Heir  Doctor,  trust  in  me, 
No  chemistry  will  win  you  ; 

Charis  still  rises  from  the  sea  ; 

If  you  can't  find  her,  might  it  be 
Because  you  seek  within  you  ? 


A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND.  201 


A   FAMILIAR   EPISTLE   TO   A   FRIEND. 

A   LIKE  I  hate  to  be  your  debtor, 
•*•*-  Or  write  a  mere  perfunctory  letter ; 
For  letters,  so  it  seems  to  me, 
Our  careless  quintessence  should  be, 
Our  real  nature's  truant  play 
When  Consciousness  looks  t'  other  way, 
Not  drop  by  drop,  with  watchful  skill, 
Gathered  in  Art's  deliberate  still, 
But  life's  insensible  completeness 
Got  as  the  ripe  grape  gets  its  sweetness, 
As  if  it  had  a  way  to  fuse 
The  golden  sunlight  into  juice. 
Hopeless  my  mental  pump  I  try ; 
The  boxes  hiss,  the  tube  is  dry  ; 
As  those  petroleum  wells  that  spout 
Awhile  like  M.  C.'s,  then  give  out, 
My  spring,  once  full  as  Arethusa, 

9* 


202  A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND. 

Is  a  mere  bore  as  dry  'a  Creusa  ; 
And  yet  you  ask  me  why  I  'm  glum, 

And  why  my  graver  Muse  is  dumb. 

• 

Ah  me  !   I  Ve  reasons  manifold 
Condensed  in  one,  —  I  'in  getting  old  ! 

When  life,  once  past  its  fortieth  year, 
Wheels  up  its  evening  hemisphere, 
The  mind's  own  shadow,  which  the  boy 
Saw  onward  point  to  hope  and  joy, 
Shifts  round,  irrevocably  set 
Tow'rd  morning's  loss  and  vain  regret, 
And,  argue  with  it  as  we  will, 
The  clock  is  unconverted  still. 

"  But  count  the  gains,"  I  hear  you  say, 
"  Which  far  the  seeming  loss  outweigh  •• 
Friendships  built  firm  'gainst  flood  and  wind 
On  rock-foundations  of  the  mind  ; 
Knowledge  instead  of  scheming  hope  ; 
For  wild  adventure,  settled  scope  ; 
Talents,  from  surface-ore  profuse, 


A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND;  203 

Tempered  and  edged  to  tools  for  use  ; 

Judgment,  for  passion's  headlong  whirls  ; 

Old  sorrows  crystalled  into  pearls  ; 

Losses  by  patience  turned  to  gains, 

Possessions  now,  that  once  were  pains  ; 

Joy's  blossom  gone,  as  go  it  must, 

To  ripen  seeds  of  faith  and  trust ; 

Why  heed  a  snow-flake  on  the  roof 

If  fire  within  keep  Age  aloof, 

Though  blundering  north- winds  .push  and  strain 

With  palms  benumbed  against  the  pane  ?  " 

My  dear  old  Friend,  you  're  very  wise  ; 

We  always  are  with  others'  eyes, 

And  see  so  clear  !   (our  neighbor's  deck  on) 

What  reef  the  idiot  's  sure  to  wreck  on  ; 

Folks  when  they  learn  how  life  has  quizzed  'em 

Are -fain  to  make  a  shift  with  Wisdom, 

And,  finding  she  nor  breaks  nor  bends, 

Give  her  a  letter  to  their  friends. 

Draw  passion's  torrent  whoso  will 

Through  sluices  smooth  to  turn  a  mill, 


204  A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND. 

And,  taking  solid  toll  of  grist, 
Forget  the  rainbow  in  the  mist, 
The  exulting  leap,  the  aimless  haste 
Scattered  in  iridescent  waste  ; 
Prefer  who  likes  the  sure  esteem 
To  cheated  youth's  midsummer  dream, 
When  every  friend  was  more  than  Damon, 
Each  quicksand  safe  to  build  a  fame  on  ; 
Believe  that  prudence  snug  excels 
Youth's  gross  of  verdant  spectacles, 
Through  which  earth's  withered  stubble  seen 
Looks  autumn-proof  as  painted  green,  — 
I  side  with  Moses  'gainst  the  masses, 
Take  you  the  drudge,  give  me  the  glasses  ! 
And,  for  your  talents  shaped  with  practice, 
Convince  me  first  that  such  the  fact  is  ; 
Let  whoso  likes  be  beat,  poor  fool, 
On  life's  hard  stithy  to  a  tool, 
Be  whoso  will  a  ploughshare  made, 
Let  me  remain  a  jolly  blade  ! 

What  's  Knowledge,  with  her  stocks  and  lands, 
To  gay  Conjecture's  yellow  strands  ? 


A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND.  205 

What 's  watching  her  slow  flock's  increase 
To  ventures  for  the  golden  fleece  ? 
What  her  deep  ships,  safe  under  lee, 
To  youth's  light  craft,  that  drinks  the  sea, 
For  Flying  Islands  making  sail, 
And  failing  where  't  is  gain  to  fail  ? 
Ah  me !  Experience  (so  we  're  told), 
Time's  crucible,  turns  lead  to  gold  ; 
Yet  what  's  experience  won  but  dross, 
Cloud-gold  transmuted  to  our  loss  ? 
What  but  base  coin  the  best  event 
To  the  untried  experiment  ? 

'T  was  an  old  couple,  says  the  poet, 

That  lodged  the  gods  and  did  not  know  it ; 

Youth  sees  and  knows  them  as  they  were 

Before  Olympus'  top  was  bare  ; 

From  Swampscot's  flats  his  eye  divine 

Sees  Venus  rocking  on  the  brine, 

With  lucent  limbs,  that  somehow  scatter  a 

Charm  that  turns  Doll  to  Cleopatra ; 

Bacchus  (that  now  is  scarce  induced 


206  A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND. 

To  give  Eld's  lagging  blood  a  boost), 

With  cymbals'  clang  and  pards  to  draw  him, 

Divine  as  Ariadne  saw  him, 

Storms  through  Youth's  pulse  with  all  his  train 

And  wins  new  Indies  in  his  brain ; 

Apollo  (with  the  old  a  trope, 

A  sort  of  finer  Mister  Pope), 

Apollo—  —but  the  Muse  forbids; 

At  his  approach  cast  down  thy  lids, 

And  think  it  joy  enough  to  hear 

Far  off  his  arrows  singing  clear ; 

He  knows  enough  who  silent  knows 

The  quiver  chiming  as  he  goes  ;  , 

He  tells  too  much  who  e'er  betrays 

The  shining  Archer's  secret  ways. 

Dear  Friend,  you  're  right  and  I  am  wrong  ; 

My  quibbles  are  not  worth  a  song, 

And  I  sophistically  tease 

My  fancy  sad  to  tricks  like  these. 

I  could  not  cheat  you  if  I  would.; 

You  know  me  and  my  jesting  mood, 


A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND.  207 

Mere  surface-foam,  for  pride  concealing 

The  purpose  of  my  deeper  feeling. 

I  have  not  spilt  one  drop  of  joy 

Poured  in  the  senses  of  the  boy, 

Nor  Nature  fails  my  walks  to  bless 

With  all  her  golden  inwardness  ; 

And  as  blind  nestlings,  unafraid, 

Stretch  up  wide-mouthed  to  every  shade 

By  which  their  downy  dream  is  stirred, 

Taking  it  for  the  mother-bird, 

So,  when  God's  shadow,  which  is  light, 

Unheralded,  by  day  or  night, 

My  wakening  instincts  falls  across, 

Silent  as  sunbeams  over  moss, 

In  my  heart's  nest  half-conscious  things 

Stir  with  a  helpless  sense  of  wings, 

Lift  themselves  up,  and  tremble  long 

With  premonitions  sweet  of  song. 

Be  patient,  and  perhaps  (who  knows  ? ) 
These  may  be  winged  one  day  like  those ; 
If  thrushes,  close-embowered  to  sing, 


208  A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND. 

Pierced  through  with  June's  delicious  sting ; 

If  swallows,  their  half-hour  to  run 

Star-breasted  in  the  setting  sun. 

At  first  they  're  but  the  unfledged  proem, 

Or  songless  schedule  of  a  poem  ; 

When  from  the  shell  they  're  hardly  dry 

If  some  folks  thrust  them  forth,  must  I  ? 

But  let  me  end  with  a  comparison 

Never  yet  hit  upon  by  e'er  a  son 

Of  our  American  Apollo, 

(And  there  's  where  I  shall  beat  them  hollow, 

If  he  is  not  a  courtly  St.  John, 

But,  as  West  said,  a  Mohawk  Injun.) 

A  poem  's  like  a  cruise  for  whales  : 

Through  untried  seas  the  hunter  sails, 

His  prow  dividing  waters  known 

To  the  blue  iceberg's  hulk  alone  ; 

At  last,  on  farthest  edge  of  day, 

He  marks  the  smoky  puff  of  spray  ; 

Then  with  bent  oars  the  shallop  flies 

To  where  the  basking  quarry  lies  ; 


A   FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND.  209 

Then  the  excitement  of  the  strife, 

The  crimsoned  waves,  —  ah,  this  is  life ! 

But,  the  dead  plunder  once  secured 

'•*-  •' 
And  safe  beside  the  vessel  moored, 

All  that  had  stirred  the  blood  before 
Is  so  much  blubber,  nothing  more, 
(I  mean  no  pun,  nor  image  so 
Mere  sentimental  verse,  you  know,) 
And  all  is  tedium,  smoke,  and  soil, 
In  trying-out  the  noisome  oil. 

Yes,  this  is  life  !     And  so  the  bard 
Through  briny  deserts,  never  scarred 
Since  Noah's  keel,  a  subject  seeks, 
And  lies  upon  the  watch  for  weeks  ; 
That  once  harpooned  and  helpless  lying, 
What  follows  is  but  weary  trying. 

Now  I  've  a  notion,  if  a  poet 

Beat  up  for  themes,  his  verse  will  show  it  j 

I  wait  for  subjects  that  hunt  me, 


210  A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE   TO  A  FRIEND. 

By  day  or  night  won't. let  me  be, 
And  hang  about  me  like  a  curse, 
Till  they  have  made  me  into  verse, 
From  line  to  line  my  fingers  tease 
Beyond  my  knowledge,  as  the  bees 
Build  no  new  cell  till  those  before 
With  limpid  summer-sweet  run  o'er; 
Then,  if  I  neither  sing  nor  shine, 
Is  it  the  subject's  fault,  or  mine  ? 


AN  EMBER  PICTURE.  211 


AN    EMBER    PICTURE. 

TT'OW  strange  are  the  freaks  of  memory ! 
-"—•-     The  lessons  of  life  we  forget, 
While  a  trifle,  a  trick  of  color, 
In  the  wonderful  web  is  set, — 

Set  by  some  mordant  of  fancy, 
And,  spite  of  the  wear  and  tear 

Of  time  or  distance  or  trouble, 
Insists  on  its  right  to  be  there. 

A  chance  had  brought  us  together  ; 

Our  talk  was  "of  matter s-of-course ; 
We  were  nothing,  one  to  the  other, 

But  a  short  half-hour's  resource. 

We  spoke  of  French  acting  and  actors, 
And  their  easy,  natural  way ; 


212  AN  EMBER  PICTURE. 

Of  the  weather,  for  it  was  raining 
As  we  drove  home  from  the  play. 

We  debated  the  social  nothings 
We  bore  ourselves  so  to  discuss ; 

The  thunderous  rumors  of  battle 
Were  silent  the  while  for  us. 

Arrived  at  her  door,  we  left  her 
With  a  drippingly  hurried  adieu, 

And  our  wheels  went  crunching  the  gravel 
Of  the  oak-darkened  avenue. 

As  we  drove  away  through  the  shadow, 
The  candle  she  held  in  the  door 

From  rain-varnished  tree-trunk  to  tree-trunk 
Flashed  fainter,  and  flashed  no  more ;  — 

Flashed  fainter,  then  wholly  faded 
Before  we  had  passed  the  wood ; 

But  the  light  of  the  face  behind  it 
Went  with  me  and  stayed  for  good. 


AN  EMBER  PICTURE.  213 

The  vision  of  scarce  a  moment, 

And  hardly  marked  at  the  time, 
It  comes  unbidden  to  haunt  me, 

Like  a  scrap  of  ballad-rhyme. 

Had  she  beauty  ?    Well,  not  what  they  call  so  ? 

You  may  find  a  thousand  as  fair ; 
And  yet  there  7s  her  face  in  my  memory 

With  no  special  claim  to  be  there. 

As  I  sit  sometimes  in  the  twilight, 
And  call  back  to  life  in  the  coals 

Old  faces  and  hopes  and  fancies 

Long  buried,  (good  rest  to  their  souls  !) 

Her  face  shines  out  in  the  embers  ; 

I  see  her  holding  the  light, 
And  hear  the  crunch  of  the  gravel 

And  the  sweep  of  the  rain  that  night. 

'T  is  a  face  "that  can  never  grow  older, 
That  never  can  part  with  its  gleam, 

7T  is  a  gracious  possession  forever, 
For  is  it  not  all  a  dream  ? 


214  TO     H.   W.  L. 

TO   H.  W.  L., 

ON    HIS    BIRTHDAY,    27TH    FEBRUARY,    1867. 

T  NEED  not  praise  the  sweetness  of  his  song, 
Where  limpid  verse  to  limpid  verse  succeeds 
Smooth    as    our    Charles,    when,    fearing    lest    he 

wrong 

The  new  moon's  mirrored  skiff,  he  slides  along, 
Full  without  noise,  and  whispers  in  his  reeds. 

With  loving  breath  of  all  the  winds  his  name 

Is  blown  about  the  world,  but  to  his  friends 
A  sweeter  secret  hides  behind  his  fame, 
And  Love  steals  shyly  through  the  loud  acclaim 
To  murmur  a  God  bless  you!  and  there  ends. 

As  I  muse  backward  up  the  checkered  years 

Wherein  so  much  was  given,  so  much  was  lost, 
Blessings  in  both  kinds,  such  as  cheapen  tears,  — 
But  hush !  this  is  not  for  profauer  ears  ; 

Let  them  drink  molten  pearls  nor  dream  the  cost. 


TO  H.    W.   L.  215 

Some  suck  up  poison  from  a  sorrow's  core, 

As   naught   but   nightshade    grew   upon   earth's 

ground  ; 

Love  turned  all  his  to  heart's-ease,  and  the  more 
Fate  tried  his  bastions,  she  but  forced  a  door 
Leading  to  sweeter  manhood  and  more  sound. 

Even  as  a  wind-waved  fountain's  swaying  shade 

Seems  of  mixed  race,  a  gray  wraith  shot  with  sun, 
So  through  his  trial  faith  translucent  rayed 
Till  darkness,  half  disnatured  so,  betrayed 
A  heart  of  sunshine  that  would  fain  o'errun. 

Surely  if  skill  in  song  the  shears  may  stay 

And  of  its  purpose  cheat  the  charmed  abyss, 
If  our  poor  life  be  lengthened  by  a  lay, 
He  shall  not  go,  although  his  presence  may, 
And  the  next  age  in  praise  shall  double  this. 

Long  days  be  his,  and  each  as  lusty-sweet 
As  gracious  natures  find  his  song  to  be  ; 
May  Age  steal  on  with  softly-cadenced  feet 
Falling  in  music,  as  for  him  were  meet 

Whose  choicest  verse  is  harsher-toned  than  he! 


21 G  THE  NIGHTINGALE  IN  THE   STUDY. 


THE   NIGHTINGALE    IN    THE   STUDY. 


"  /^10ME   forth  !  "   my  catbird  calls   to   me, 

"And  hear  me  sing  a  cavatina 
That,  in  this  old  familiar  tree, 
Shall  hang  a  garden  of  Alcina. 

"  These  buttercups  shall  brim  with  wine 
Beyond  all  Lesbian  juice  or  Massic  ; 

May  not  New  England  be  divine  ? 
My  ode  to  ripening  summer  classic  ? 

"  Or,  if  to  me  you  will  not  hark, 

By  Beaver  Brook  a  thrush  is  ringing 

Till  all  the  alder-coverts  dark 

Seem  sunshine-dappled  with  his  singing. 

"  Come  out  beneath  the  unmastered  sky, 
With  its  emancipating  spaces, 


THE  NIGHTINGALE  IN   THE  STUDY.  217 

And  learn  to  sing  as  well  as  I, 
Without  premeditated  graces. 

"  What  boot  your  many-volumed  gains, 
Those  withered  leaves  forever  turning, 

To  win,  at  best,  for  all  your  pains, 
A  nature  mummy-wrapt  in  learning  ? 

"  The  leaves  wherein  true  wisdom  lies 
On  living  trees  the  sun  are  drinking  ; 

Those  white  clouds,  drowsing  through  the  skies, 
Grew  not  so  beautiful  by  thinking. 

"  Come  out !  with  me  the  oriole  cries, 
Escape  the  demon  that  pursues  you ! 

And,  hark,  the  cuckoo  weatherwise, 

Still  hiding,  farther  onward  wooes  you." 

"  Alas,  dear  friend,  that,  all  my  days, 

Hast  poured  from  that  syringa  thicket 
The  quaintly  discontinuous  lays 

To  which  I  hold  a  season-ticket, 
10 


THE  NIGHTINGALE  IN  THE  STUDY. 

"  A  season-ticket  cheaply  bought 
With  a  dessert  of  pilfered  berries, 

And  who  so  oft  my  soul  hast  caught 
With  morn  and  evening  voluntaries, 

"  Deem  me  not  faithless,  if  all  day 
Among  my  dusty  books  I  linger, 

No  pipe,  like  thee,  for  June  to  play 
With  fancy-led,  half-conscious  finger. 

"  A  bird  is  singing  in  my  brain 

And  bubbling  o'er  with  mingled  fancies, 

Gay,  tragic,  rapt,  right  heart  of  Spain 
Fed  with  the  sap  of  old  romances. 

"  I  ask  no  ampler  skies  than  those 
His  magic  music  rears  above  me, 

No  falser  friends,  no  truer  foes,  — 
And  does  not  Dona  Clara  love  me  ? 

"  Cloaked  shapes,  a  twanging  of  guitars, 
A  rush  of  feet,  and  rapiers  clashing, 


THE  NIGHTINGALE  IN  THE  STUDY.  219 

Then  silence  deep  with  breathless  stars, 
And  overhead  a  white  hand  flashing. 

"  0  music  of  all  moods  and  climes, 
Vengeful,  forgiving,  sensuous,  saintly, 

Where  still,  between  the  Christian  chimes, 
The  Moorish  cymbal  tinkles  faintly ! 

"  0  life  borne  lightly  in  the  hand, 

For  friend  or  foe  with  grace  Castilian ! 

0  valley  safe  in  Fancy's  land, 

Not  tramped  to  mud  yet  by  the  million ! 

"  Bird  of  to-day,  thy  songs  are  stale 
To  his,  my  singer  of  all  weathers, 

My  Calderon,  my  nightingale, 

My  Arab  soul  in  Spanish  feathers. 

"  Ah,  friend,  these  singers  dead  so  long, 
And  still,  God  knows,  in  purgatory, 

Give  its  best  sweetness  to  all  song, 
To  Nature's  self  her  better  glory. " 


220  IN  TI1E  TWILIGHT. 


IN    THE    TWILIGHT. 

"It  /TEX  say  the  sullen  instrument, 
l.T.1.  That,  from  the  Master's  bow, 

With  pangs  of  joy  or  woe, 
Feels  music's  soul  through  every  fibre  sent, 

Whispers  the  ravished   strings 
More  than  he  knew  or  meant ; 

Old  summers  in  its  memory  glow ; 
The  secrets  of  the  wind  it  sings  ; 
It  hears  the  April-loosened  springs; 
And  mixes  with  its  mood 
All  it  dreamed  when  it  stood 
In  the  murmurous  pine-wood 
Long  ago! 

The  magical  moonlight  then 
Steeped  every  bough  and  cone; 

The  roar  of  the  brook  in  the  glen 
Came  dim  from  the  distance  blown  ; 


IN  THE  TWILIGHT.  221 

The  wind  through  its  glooms  sang  low, 
And  it  swayed  to  and  fro 
With  delight  as  it  stood, 
In  the  wonderful  wood, 
Long  ago  ! 


0  my  life,  have  we  not  had  seasons 
That  only  said,  Live  and  rejoice  ? 
That  asked  not  for  causes  and  reasons, 

But  made  us  all  feeling  and  voice  ? 
When  we  went  with  the  winds  in  their  blowing, 

When  Nature  and  we  were  peers, 
And  we  seemed  to  share  in  the  flowing 
Of  the  inexhaustible  years  ? 
Have  we  not  from  the  earth  drawn  juices 
Too  fine  for  earth's  sordid  uses  ? 
Have  I  heard,  have  I  seen 

All  I  feel  and   I  know? 
Doth  my  heart  overween? 
Or  could  it  have  been 
Long  ago  ? 


222  IN  THE  TWILIGHT. 

Sometimes  a  breath  floats  by  me, 
An  odor  from  Dreamland  sent, 
That  makes  the  ghost  seem  nigh  me 
Of  a  splendor  that  came  and  went, 
Of  a  life  lived  somewhere,  I  know  not 

In  what  diviner  sphere, 
Of  memories  that  stay  not  and  go  not, 
Like  music  heard  once  by  an  ear 
That  cannot  forget  or  reclaim  it, 
A  something  so  shy,  it  would  shame  it 

To  make  it  a  show, 
A  something  too  vague,  could  I  name  it, 

For  others  to  know, 
As  if  I  had  lived  it  or  dreamed  it, 
As  if  I  had  acted  or  schemed  it, 
Long  ago  I 

And  yet,  could  I  live  it  over, 

This  life  that  stirs  in  my  brain, 
Could  I  be  both  maiden  and  lover, 
Moon  and  tide,  bee  and  clover, 

As  I  seem  to  have  been,  once  again, 


IN   THE   TWILIGHT.  223 

Could  I  but  speak  and  show  it, 

This  pleasure  more  sharp  than  pain, 

That  baffles  and  lures  me  so, 
The  world  should  not  lack  a  poet, 
Such  as  it  had 
In  the  ages  glad, 
Long  ago ! 


224  THE   FOOT-PATH. 


THE    FOOT-PATH. 

TTT  mounts  athwart  the  windy  hill 

Through  sallow  slopes  of  upland  bare, 
And  Fancy  climbs  with  foot-fall  still 
Its  narrowing  curves  that  end  in  air. 

By  day,  a  warmer-hearted  blue 

Stoops  softly  to  that  topmost  swell ; 

Its  thread-like  windings  seem  a  clew 
To  gracious  climes  where  all  is  well. 

By  night,  far  yonder,  I  surmise 

An  ampler  world  than  clips  my  ken, 

Where  the  great  stars  of  happier  skies 
Commingle  nobler  fates  of  men. 

I  look  and  long,  then  haste  me  home, 
Still  master  of  my  secret  rare  ; 


THE   FOOT-PATH.  225 

Once  tried,  the  path  would  end  in  Rome, 
But  now  it  leads  me  everywhere. 

Forever  to  the  new  it  guides, 

From  former  good,  old  overmuch  ; 

What  Nature  for  her  poets  hides, 
7T  is  wiser  to  divine  than  clutch. 

The  bird  I  list  hath  never  come 

Within  the  scope  of  mortal  ear ; 
My  prying  step  would  make  him  dumb, 

And  the  fair  tree,  his  shelter,  sear. 

Behind  the  hill,  behind  the  sky, 

Behind  my  inmost  thought,  he  sings ; 

No  feet  avail  :  to  hear  it  nigh, 

The  song  itself  must  lend  the  wings. 

Sing  on,  sweet  bird,  close  hid,  and  raise 
Those  angel  stairways  in  my  brain, 

That  climb  from  these  low-vaulted  days 
To  spacious  sunshines  far  from  pain. 


226  THE  FOOT-PATH. 

Sing  when  thou  wilt,  enchantment  fleet, 
I  leave  thy  covert  haunt  untrod, 

And  envy  Science  not  her  feat 
To  make  a  twice-told  tale  of  God. 

They  said  the  fairies  tript  no  more, 
And  long  ago  that  Pan  was  dead  ; 

'T  was  but  that  fools  preferred  to  bore 
Earth's  rind  inch-deep  for  truth  instead. 

Pan  leaps  and  pipes  all  summer  long, 
The  ftiiries  dance  each  full-mooned  night, 

Would  we  but  doff  our  lenses  strong, 
And  trust  our  wiser  eyes'  delight, 

City  of  Elf-land,  just  without 

Our  seeing,  marvel  ever  new, 
Glimpsed  in  fair  weather,  a  sweet  doubt 

Sketched-in,  mirage-like,  on  the  blue. 

I  build  thee  in  yon  sunset  cloud, 

Whose  edge  allures  to  climb  the  height : 


THE  FOOT-PATH.  227 

I  hear  thy  drowned  bells,  inly-loud, 

From  still  pools  dusk  with  dreams  of  night. 

Thy  gates  are  shut  to  hardiest  will, 
Thy  countersign  of  long-lost  speech, — 

Those  fountained  courts,  those  chambers  still, 
Fronting  Time's  far  East,  who  shall  reach  ? 

I  know  not  and  will  never  pry, 
But  trust  our  human  heart  for  all ; 

Wonders  that  from  the  seeker  fly, 
Into  an  open  sense  may  fall. 

Hide  in  thine  own  soul,  and  surprise 
The  password  of  the  unwary  elves  ; 

Seek  it,  thou  canst  not  bribe  their  spies  ; 
Unsought,  they  whisper  it  themselves. 


POEMS    OF    THE    WAR. 


THE  WASHERS  OF  THE  SHROUD. 

OCTOBER,  1861. 

A   LONG  a  river-side,  I  know  not  where, 
^       I  walked  one  night  in  mystery  of  dream  ; 
A  chill  creeps  curdling  yet  beneath  rny  hair, 
To  think  what  chanced  me  by  the  pallid  gleam 
Of  a  moon-wraith  that  waned  through  haunted  air. 

Pale  fireflies  pulsed  within  the  meadow-mist 

Their  halos,  wavering  thistledowns  of  light  ;  / 

The  loon,  that  seemed  to  mock  some  goblin  tryst, 

Laughed  :  and  the  echoes,  huddling  in  affright, 

Like  Odin's  hounds,  fled  baying  down   the  night. 

Then  all  was  silent,  till  there  smote  my  ear 

,1  movement  in  the  stream  that  checked  my  breath: 

Was  it  the  slow  plash  of  a  wading  deer  ? 


232  THE  WASHERS  OF  THE  SHROUD. 

But  something  said,  "This  water  is  of  Death! 
The  Sisters  wash  a  shroud, — ill  thing  to  hear ! " 

I,  looking  then,  beheld  the  ancient  Three 
Known  to  the  Greek's  and  to  the  Northman's  creed, 
That  sit  in  shadow  of  the  mystic  Tree, 
Still  crooning,  as  they  weave  their  endless  brede, 
One  song  :    "  Time  was,  Time  is,  and  Time  shall 
be." 

No  wrinkled  crones  were  they,  as  I  had  deemed, 
But  fair  as  yesterday,  to-day,  to-morrow, 
To  mourner,  lover,  poet,  ever  seemed  ; 
Something  too  high  for  joy,  too  deep  for  sorrow, 
Thrilled  in  their  tones,  and  from  their  faces  gleamed. 

"  Still  men  and  nations  reap  as  they  have  strawn," 
So  sang  they,  working  at  their  task  the  while  ; 
"  The  fatal  raiment  must  be  cleansed  ere  dawn  : 
Kor  Austria?    Italy?  the  Sea-Queen's  isle? 
O'er  what  quenched  grandeur  must  our  shroud  be 
drawn  ? 


THE  WASHERS  OF  THE  SHROUD.  233 

"  Or  is  it  for  a  younger,  fairer  corse, 
That  gathered  States  for  children  round  hfs  knees, 
That  tamed  the  wave  to  be  his  posting-horse, 
Feller  of  forests,  linker  of  the  seas, 
Bridge-builder,  hammerer,  youngest  son  of  Thor's? 

"  What  make  we,  murmur* st  thou?  and  what  are  we  ? 
When  empires  must  be  wound,  we  bring  the  shroud, 
The  time-old  web  of  the  implacable  Three : 
Is  it  too  coarse  for  him,  the  young  and  proud  ? 
Earth's  mightiest  deigned   to  wear  it,  —  why  not 
he?" 

"  Is  there  no   hope  ?  "    I  moaned,  "  so  strong,  so 

fair ! 

Our  Fowler  whose  proud  bird  would  brook  ere  while 
No  rival's  swoop  in  all  our  western  air ! 
Gather  the  ravens,  then,  in  funeral  file 
For  him,  life's  morn  yet  golden  in  his  hair  ? 

"  Leave  me  not  hopeless,  ye  unpitying  dames ! 
I  see,  half  seeing.     Tell  me,  ye  who  scanned 
The  stars,  Earth's  elders,   still   must  noblest  aims 


234  THE  WASHERS  OF  THE  SHROUD. 

Be  traced  upon  oblivious  ocean-sands  ? 

Must  EEesper  join  the  wailing  ghosts  of  names  ?  " 

"  When  grass-blades  stiffen  with  red  battle-dew, 
Ye  deem  we  choose  the  victor  and  the  slain  : 
Say,  choose  we  them  that  shall  be  leal  and  true 
To  the  heart's  longing,  the  high  faith  of  brain  ? 
Yet  there  the  victory  lies,  if  ye  but  knew. 

"Three    roots    bear    up    Dominion  :    Knowledge, 

Will,  — 

These  twain  are  strong,  but  stronger  yet  the  third,  — 
Obedience,  —  't  is  the  great  tap-root  that  still, 
Knit  round  the  rock  of  Duty,  is  not  stirred, 
Though   Heaven-loosed   tempests   spend   their   ut 
most  skill. 

"Is  the  doom  sealed  for  Ilesper  ?    'T  is  not  we 
Denounce  it,  but  the  Law  before  all  time  : 
The  brave  makes  danger  opportunity  ; 
-The  waverer,  paltering  with  the  chance  sublime, 
Dwarfs  it  to  peril  :  which  shall  Hesper  be  ? 


THE  WASHERS  OF   THE  SHROUD.  235 

"Hath  he  let  vultures  climb  his  eagle's  seat 
To  make  Jove's  bolts  purveyors  o'f  their  maw  ? 
Hath  he  the  Many's  plaudits  found  more  sweet 
Than  Wisdom  ?  held  Opinion's  wind  for  Law  ? 
Then  let  him  hearken  for  the  doomster's  feet ! 

"  Rough  are  the  steps,  slow-hewn  in  flintiest  rock, 
States    climb    to   power   by  ;    slippery  those  with 

gold 

Down  which  they  stumble  to  eternal  mock  : 
No  chafferer's  hand  shall  long  the  sc"eptre  hold, 
Who,  given  a  Fate  to  shape,  would  sell  the  block. 

"  We  sing  old  Sagas,  songs  of  weal  and  woe, 
Mystic  because  too  cheaply  understood  ; 
Dark  sayings  are  not  ours  ;    men  hear  and  know, 
See  Evil  weak,  see  strength  alone  in  Good, 
Yet  hope  to  stem  God's  fire  with  walls  of  tow. 

"  Time  Was  unlocks  the  riddle  of  Time  Is, 
That  offers  choice  of  glory  or  of  gloom  ; 
The  solver  makes  Time  Shall  Be  surely  his. 


236  THE  WASHERS  OF  THE  SHROUD. 

But  hasten,  Sisters  !  for  even  now  the  tomb 
Grates  its  slow  hinge  and  calls  from  the  abyss. " 

"  But  not  for  him/'  I  cried,   "  not  yet  for  him, 
Whose  large  horizon,  westering,  star  by  star  • 
Wins  from  the  void  to  where  on  Ocean's  rim 
The  sunset  shuts  the  world  with  golden  bar, 
Not  yet  his  thews  shall  fail,  his  eye  grow  dim  ! 

"  His  shall  be  larger  manhood,   saved  for  those 
That  walk  unblcnching  through  the  trial -fires  ; 
Not  suffering,  but  faint  heart,  is  worst  of  woes, 
And  he  no  base-born  son  of  craven  sires, 
Whose    eye    need    blench     confronted    with     his 
foes. 

"  Tears  may  be  ours,  but  proud,  for  those  who  win 
Death's  royal  purple  in  the  foeman's  lines  ; 
Peace,  too,  brings  tears  ;  and  'mid  the  battle-din, 
The  wiser  ear  some  text  of  God  divines, 
For    the    sheathed    blade    may    rust    with    darker 
sin. 


THE  WASHERS   OF   THE   SHROUD.  237 

"  God,  give  us  peace  !  not  such  as  lulls  to  sleep, 
But  sword  on  thigh,  and  brow  with  purpose  knit  1 
And  let  our  Ship  of  State  to  harbor  sweep, 
Her  ports  all  up,  her  battle-lanterns  lit, 
And  her  leashed  thunders  gathering  for  their  leap ! n 

So  cried  I  with  clenched  hands  and  passionate  pain, 
Thinking  of  dear  ones  by  Potomac's  side  ; 
Again  the  loon  laughed  mocking,  and  again 
The  echoes  bayed  far  down  the  night  and  died, 
While  waking  I  recalled  my  wandering  brain. 


238      TWO  SCENES  FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  BLONDEL. 


TWO  SCENES  FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  BLONDEL. 

AUTUMN,  1863. 

SCENE  I.  —  Near  a  Castle  in  Germany. 

Til  WERE  no  hard  task,  perchance,  "to  win 

The  popular  laurel  for  my  song  ; 
;T  were  only  to  comply  with  sin, 

And  own  the  crown,  though  snatched  by  wrong : 
Rather  Truth's  chaplet  let  me  wear, 

Though  sharp  as  death  its  thorns  may  sting  ; 
Loyal  to  Loyalty,  I  bear 

No  badge  but  of  my  rightful  king. 

Patient  by  town  and  tower  I  wait, 
Or  o'er  the  blustering  moorland  go ; 

I  buy  no  praise  at  cheaper  rate, 
Or  what  faint  hearts  may  fancy  so  ; 

For  me,  no  joy  in  lady's  bower, 
Or  hall,  or  tourney,  will  I  sing, 


TWO   SCENKS   FROM   THE   LIFE   OF   BLONDEL.      239 

Till  the  slow  stars  wheel  round  the  hour 
That  crowns  my  hero  and  my  king. 


While  all  the  land  runs  red  with  strife, 

And  wealth  is  won  by  pedler-crimes, 
Let  who  will  find  content  in  life 

And  tinkle  in  unmanly  rhymes ; 
I  wait  and  seek  ;   through  dark  and  light, 

Safe  in  my  heart  my  hope  I  bring, 
Till  I  once  more  my  faith  may  plight 

To  him  my  whole  soul  owns  her  king. 


When  power  is  filched  by  drone  and  dolt, 

And,  with  caught  breath  and  flashing  eye, 
Her  knuckles  whitening  round  the  bolt, 

Vengeance  leans  eager  from  the  sky, 
While  this  and  that  the  people  guess, 

And  to  the  skirts  of  praters  cling, 
Who  court  the  crowd  they  should  compress, 

I  turn  in  scorn  to  seek  my  king. 


240      TWO   SCENES    FltOM   THE   LIFE   OF   BLO^NDEL. 

Shut  in  what  tower  of  darkling  chance 

Or  dungeon  of  a  narrow  doom, 
Dream'st  thou  of  battle-axe  and  lance 

That  for  the  Cross  make  crashing  room  ? 
Come !  with  hushed  breath  the  battle  waits 

In  the  wild  van  thy  mace's  swing ; 
While  doubters  parley  with  their  fates, 

Make  thou  thine  own  and  ours,  my  king  I 

0,  strong  to  keep  upright  the  old, 

And  wise  to  buttress  with  the  new, 
Prudent,  as  only  are  the  bold, 

Clear-eyed,  as  only  are  the  true, 
To  foes  benign,  to  friendship  stern, 

Intent  to  imp  Law's  broken  wing, 
Who  would  not  die,  if  death  might  earn 

Thje  right  to  kiss  thy  hand,  my  king  ? 


TWO  SCENES  FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  BLONDEL.     241 


SCENE  II.  —  An  Inn  near  the  Chateau  of  Chains. 


,  the  whole  thing  is  over,  and  here  I  sit 
With  one  arm  in  a  sling  and  a  milk-score 
of  gashes, 

And  this  flagon  of  Cyprus  must  e'en  warm  my  wit, 
Since  what  's   left   of  youth's   flame   is   a  head 

flecked  with  ashes. 
I  remember  I  sat  in  this  very  same  inn,  — 

I  was  young  then,  and  one  young  man  thought 

I  was  handsome,  — 

I  had  found  out  what  prison  King  Richard  was  in, 
And  was  spurring  for  England  to  push  on  the 
ransom. 

How  I   scorned  the  dull   souls   that   sat   guzzling 

around 

And  knew  not  my  secret  nor  recked  my  derision  ! 
Let  the  world  sink  or  swim,  John    or   Richard  be 

crowned, 

All  one,  so  the  beer-tax  got  lenient  revision. 
11  p 


242      TWO  SCENES   FROM  THE  LIFE  OF   BLONDEL. 

How  little  I  dreamed,  as  I  tramped  up  and  down, 
That   granting   our  wish   one  of  Fate's  saddest 

jokes  is  ! 
I  had  mine  with  a  vengeance,  —  my  king  got  his 

crown, 

And   made   his   whole   business   to   break   other 
folks's. 

I  might  as  well  join  in  the  safe  old  turn,  turn: 

A  hero  's  an  excellent  loadstar,  —  but,  bless  ye, 
What  infinite  odds  'twixt  a  hero  to  come 

And  your  only  too  palpable  hero  in  esse ! 
Precisely  the  odds  (such  examples  are  rife) 

'Twixt  the   poem  conceived   and   the  rhyme  we 

make  show  of, 
'Twixt  ^the  boy's  morning  dream  and  the  wake-up 

of  life, 

'Twixt  the  Blondcl  God  meant  and  a  Blondel  I 
know  of! 

But  the  world  's  better  off,  I  ;m  convinced  of  it  now, 
Thau  if  heroes,  like  buns,  could  be  bought  for  a 
penny 


TWO  SCENES  FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  BLONDEL.     243 

i 
To  regard  all  mankind  as  their  haltered  milch-cow, 

And  just  care  for  themselves.     Well,  God  carea 

for  the  many  ; 
For  somehow  the  poor  old   Earth  blunders  along, 

Each  son  of  hers  adding  his  mite  of  unfitness, 
And,  choosing  the  sure  way  of  coming  out  wrong, 

Gets  to  port,  as  the  next  generation  will  witness. 

You  think   her   old   ribs   have   come   all   crashing 

through, 
If  a  whisk  of  Fate's  broom  snap   your  cobweb 

asunder ; 

But  her  rivets  were  clinched  by  a  wiser  than  you, 
And  our  sins  cannot  push  the  Lord's  right  hand 

from  under. 
Better  one  honest  man  who   can   wait   for   God's 

mind 
In  our  poor  shifting   scene  here,  though  heroes 

were  plenty ! 

Better  one  bite,  at  forty,  of  Truth's  bitter  rind, 
Than  the  hot  wine  that  gushed  from  the  vintage 
of  twenty  ! 


244     TWO  SCENES  FROM   THE  LIFE  OF  BLONDEL. 

t 
I  see  it  all  now  :  when  I  wanted  a  king, 

;T  was  the  kingship  that  failed  in  myself  I  waa 

seeking,  — 
'T  is  so  much  less  easy  to  do  than  to  sing, 

So  much  simpler  to  reign  by  a  proxy  than  be  king  ! 

Yes,  I  think  I  do  see :    after  all 's  said  and  sung, 

Take  this  one   rule   of  life   and   you   never  will 

rue  it,  — 
'T  is  but  do   your   own  duty  and   hold   your  own 

tongue, 
And  Blondel  were  royal  himself,  if  he  knew  it ! 


MEMOKLE  POSITUM.  245 


MEMORISE    POSITUM. 

R.  G.  S. 

i. 

TQENEATH  the  trees, 

-*^  My  life-long  friends  in  this  dear  spot; 
Sad  now  for  eyes  that  see  them  not 

I  hear  the  autumnal  breeze 

Wake  the  sear  leaves  to  sigh  for  gladness 'gone, 
Whispering  hoarse  presage  of  oblivion,  — 

Hear,  restless  as  the  seas, 

Time's  grim  feet  rustling  through  the  withered  grace 
Of  many  a  spreading  realm  and  strong-stemmed  race, 

Even  as  my  own  through  these. 

Why  make  we  moan 
For  loss  that  doth  enrich  us  yet 
With  upward  yearnings  of  regret  ? 

Bleaker  than  unmossed  stone 
Our  lives  were  but  for  this  immortal  gain 


24G  MEMORLE  POSITUM. 

Of  unstilled  longing  and  inspiring  pain ! 

As  thrills  of  long-hushed  tone 
Live  in  the  viol,  so  our  souls  grow  fine 
With  keen  vibrations  from  the  touch  divine 

Of  noble  natures  gone. 

'T  were  indiscreet 
To  vex  the  shy  and  sacred  grief 
With  harsh  obtrusions  of  relief ; 

Yet,  Verse,  with  noiseless  feet, 
Go  whisper  :  "  This  death  hath  far  choicer  ends 
Than  slowly  to  im pearl  in  hearts  of  friends  ; 

These  obsequies  't  is  meet 
Not  to  seclude  in  closets  of  the  heart, 
But,  church-like,  with  wide  doorways,  to  impart 

Even  to  the  heedless  street. " 

n. 

Brave,  good,  and  true, 
I  see  him  stand  before  me  now, 
And  read  again  on  that  young  brow, 

Where  every  hope  was  new, 


MEMORLE  POSITUM.  247 

How  sweet  were  life!    Yet,  by  the  mouth  firm-set, 
And  look  made  up  for  Duty's  utmost  debt, 

I  could  divine  he  knew 

That  death  within  the  sulphurous  hostile  lines, 
In  the  mere  wreck  of  nobly-pitched  designs, 

Plucks  heart's-ease,  and  not  rue. 

Happy  their  end 

Who  vanish  down  life's  evening  stream 
Placid  as  swans  that  drift  in  dream 

Round  the  next  river-bend  ! 
Happy  long  life,  with  honor  at  the  close, 
Friends'  painless  tears,  the  softened  thought  of  foes ! 

And  yet,  like  him,  to  spend 
All  at  a  gush,  keeping  our  first  faith  sure 
From  mid-life's  doubt  and  eld's  contentment  poor,  — 

What  more  could  Fortune  send  ? 

Right  in  the  van, 

On  the  red  rampart's  slippery  swell, 
With  heart  that  beat  a  charge,  he  fell 

Foeward,  as  fits  a  man  ; 


248  MEMORLE  POSITUM. 

But  the  high  soul  burns  on  to  light  men's  feet 
Where  death  for  noble  ends  makes  dying  sweet ; 

His  life  her  crescent's  span 
Orbs  full  with  share  in  their  undarkeniug  days 
Who  ever  climbed  the  battailous  steeps  of  praise 

Since  valor's  praise  began. 

in. 

His  life's  expense 
Hath  won  for  him  coeval  youth 
With  the  immaculate  prime  of  Truth  ; 

While  we,  who  make  pretence 
At  living  on,  and  wake  and  eat  and  sleep, 
And  life's  stale  trick  by  repetition  keep, 

Our  fickle  permanence 

(A  poor  leaf-shadow  on  a  brook,  whose  play 
Of  busy  idlesse  ceases  with  our  day) 
Is  the  mere  cheat  of  sense. 

We  bide  our  chance, 
Unhappy,  and  make  terms  with  Fate 
A  little  more  to  let  us  wait  ; 

He  leads  for  aye  the  advance, 


MEMORLE  POSITUM.  249 

Hope's  forlorn-hopes  that  plant  the  desperate  good 
For  nobler  Earths  and  days  of  manlier  mood  ; 

Our  wall  of  circumstance 
Cleared  at  a  bound,  he  flashes  o'er  the  fight, 
A  saintly  shape  of  fame,  to  cheer  the  right 

And  steel  each  wavering  glance. 

I  write  of  one, 

While  with  dim  eyes  I  think  of  three  ; 
Who  \voeps  not  others  fair  and  brave  as  he  ? 

Ah,  when  the  fight  is  won, 

Dear  Land,  whom  triflers  now  make  bold  to  scorn, 
(Thee !    from   whose    forehead   Earth    awaits    her 

morn,) 

How  nobler  shall  the  sun 

Flame  in  thy  sky,  how  braver  breathe  thy  air, 
That  thou  bred'st  children  who  for  thee  could  dare 
And  die  as  thine  have  done  ! 


1863. 


11* 


ON  BOARD  THE  76. 


ON    BOARD    THE    '76. 

WRITTEN    FOR    MR.    BRYANTS    SEVENTIETH   BIRTHDAY. 
NOVEMBER  3,  1864. 

/^VUR  ship  lay  tumbling  in  an  angry  sea, 

Her  rudder  gone,  her  main-mast  o'er  the  side ; 
Her  scuppers,  from  the  waves'  clutch   staggering 

free 
Trailed  threads  of  priceless  crimson  through  the 

tide  ; 

Sails,  shrouds,  and  spars  with  pirate  cannon  torn, 
We  lay,  awaiting  morn. 

Awaiting  morn,  such  morn  as  mocks  despair ; 

And  she  that  bore  the  promise  of  the  world 
Within  her  sides,  now  hopeless,  helmless,  bare, 

At  random  o'er  the  wildering  waters  hurled  ; 
The  reek  of  battle  drifting  slow  alee 
Not  sullener  than  we. 


ON  BOARD  THE  '76.  251 

Morn  came  at  last  to  peer  into  our  woe, 

When  lo,  a  sail  !     Now  surely  help  was  nigh ; 
The  red  cross  flames  aloft,  Christ's  pledge  ;  but  no, 

Her  black  guns  grinning  hate,  she  rushes  by 
And   hails   us:  —  "Gains   the    leak?     Ay,    so   we 

thought ! 
Sink,  then,  with  curses  fraught !  " 

]  leaned  against  my  gun  still  angry-hot, 

And  my  lids  tingled  with  the  tears  held  back; 

This  scorn  methought  was  crueller  than  shot ; 
The  manly  death-grip  in  the  battle-wrack, 

yard-arm  to  yard-arm,  were  more  friendly  far 
Thau  such  fear-smothered  war. 


There  our  foe  wallowed,  like  a  wounded  brute 
The  fiercer  for  his  hurt.     What  now  were  best  ? 

Once  more  tug  bravely  at  the  peril's  root, 

Though  death  came  with  it  ?     Or  evade  the  test 

If  right  or  wrong  in  this  God's  world  of  ours 
Be  leagued  with  higher  powers? 


252  ON  BOARD  THE  '76. 

Some,  faintly  loyal,  felt  their  pulses  lag 

With  the  slow  beat  that  doubts  and  then  despairs  ; 

Some,  caitiff,  would  have  struck  the  starry  flag 
That  knits  us  with  our  past,  and  makes  us  heirs 

Of  deeds  high-hearted  as  were  ever  done 

'Neath  the  all-seeing  sun. 

» 
But  there  was  one,  the  SingSr  of  our  crew, 

Upon  whose  head  Age  waved  his  peaceful  sign, 
But  whose  red  heart's-blood   no  surrender  knew  ; 

And  couchant  under  brows  of  massive  line, 
The  eyes,  like  guns  beneath  a  parapet, 

Watched,  charged  with  lightnings  yet. 

The  voices  of  the  hills  did  his  obey  ; 

The  torrents  flashed  and  tumbled  in  his  song ; 
He  brought  our  native  fields  from  far  away, 

Or  set  us  'mid  the  innumerable  throng 
Of  dateless  woods,  or  where  we  heard  the  calm 
Old  homestead's  evening  psalm. 

But  now  he  sang  of  faith  to  things  unseen, 
Of  freedom's  birthright  given  to  us  in  trust ; 


ON  BOARD  THE  '76.  253 

• 

And  words  of  doughty  cheer  he  spoke  between, 

That  made  all  earthly  fortune  seem  as  dust, 
Matched  with  that  duty,  old  as  Time  and  new, 
Of  being  brave  and  true. 

We,  listening,  learned  what   makes   the   might  of 

words,  — 

Manhood  to  back  them,  constant  as  a  star  ; 
His  voice   rammed   home  our   cannon,  edged   our 

swords, 

Arid  sent  our  boarders  shouting  ;  shroud  and  spar 
Heard  him  and  stiffened  ;  the  sails  heard,  and  wooed 
The  winds  with  loftier  mood. 

In  our  dark  hours  he  manned  our  guns  again  ; 
Kemanned    ourselves   from    his    own   manhood's 

store  ; 
Pride,   honor,    country,    throbbed   through   all    his 

strain  ; 
And    shall    we    praise  ?     God's   praise   was   his 

before  ; 

And  on  our  futile  laurels  he  looks  down, 
Himself  our  bravest  crown. 


254  COMMEMORATION  ODE. 


ODE    RECITED   AT    THE    HARVARD    COM 
MEMORATION. 

JULY   21,   1865. 


"YVTEAK-WINGED  is  song, 

Nor  aims  at  that  clear-ethered  height 
Whither  the  brave  deed  climbs  for  light : 

We  seem  to  do  them  wrong, 
Bringing  our  robin's-leaf  to  deck  their  hearse 
Who  in  warm  life-blood  wrote  their  nobler  verse, 
Our  trivial  song  to  honor  those  who  come 
With  ears  attuned  to  strenuous  trump  and  drum, 
And  shaped  in  squadron-strophes  their  desire, 
Live  battle-odes  whose  lines  were  steel  and  fire  : 

Yet  sometimes  feathered  words  are  strong, 
A  gracious  memory  to  buoy  up  and  save 
From  Lethe's  dreamless  ooze,  the  common  grave 

Of  the  unventurous  throng. 


COMMEMORATION  ODE.  255 

II. 

To-day  our  Reverend  Mother  welcomes  back 
Her  wisest  Scholars,  those  who  understood 
The  deeper  teaching  of  her  mystic  tome, 

And  offered  their  fresh  lives  to  make  it  good : 

No  lore  of  Greece  or  Rome, 
No  science  peddling  with  the  names  of  things, 
Or  reading  stars  to  find  inglorious  fates, 

Can  lift  our  life  with  wings 
Far   from   Death's    idle    gulf   that   for    the    many 

waits, 

And  lengthen  out  our  dates 
With  that  clear  fame  whose  memory  sings 
hi   manly  hearts    to    come,    and  nerves    them   and 

dilates  : 

Nor  such  thy  teaching,  Mother  of  us  all  I 
Not  such  the  trumpet-call 
Of  thy  diviner  mood, 
That  could  thy  sons  entice 
From  happy  homes  and  toils,  the  fruitful  nest 
Of  those  half-virtues  which  the  world  calls  best, 
Into  War's  tumult  rude  ; 


256  COMMEMORATION  ODE. 

But  rather  far  that  stern  device 
The  sponsors  chose  that  round  thy  cradle  stood 
In  the  dim-,  uiiventured  wood, 
The  YERITAS  that  lurks  beneath 
The  letter's  unprolific  sheath, 
Life  of  whatever  makes  life  worth  living, 
Seed-grain  of  high  emprise,  immortal  food, 

One  heavenly  thing  whereof  earth  hath  the  giving. 


in. 


Many  loved  Truth,  and  lavished  life's  best  oil 

Amid  the  dust  of  books  to  find  her, 
Content  at  last,  for  guerdon  of  their  toil, 

With  the  cast  mantle  she  hath   left  behind  her. 
Many  in  sad  faith  sought  for  her, 
Many  with  crossed  hands  sighed  for  her  ; 
But  these,  our  brothers,  fought  for  her, 
At  life's  dear  peril  wrought  for  her, 
So  loved  her  that  they  died  for  her, 
Tasting  the  raptured  fleetness 
Of  her  divine  completeness : 
Their  higher  instinct  knew 


COMMEMORATION  ODE.  257 

Those  love  her  best  who  to  themselves  are  true, 
And  what  they  dare  to  dream  of  dare  to  do  ; 

They  followed  her  and  found  her 

Where  all  may  hope  to  find, 
Not  in  the  ashes  of  the  burnt-out  mind, 
But  beautiful,  with  danger's  sweetness  round  her; 

Where  faith  made  whole  with  deed 

Breathes  its  awakening  breath 

Into  the  lifeless  creed, 

They  saw  her  plumed  and  mailed, 

With  sweet  stern  face  unveiled, 
And  all-repaying  eyes,  look  proud  on  them  in  death. 

IV. 

Our  slender  life  runs  rippling  by,  and  glides 
Into  the  silent  hollow  of  the  past ; 

What  is  there  that  abides 
To  make  the  next  age  better  for  the  last  ? 

Is  earth  too  poor  to  give  us 
Something  to  live  for  here  that  shall  outlive 

us  ? 
Some  more  substantial  boon 

Q 


258  COMMEMORATION  ODE. 

Than  such  as  flows  and  ebbs  with  Fortune's  fickle 

moon  ? 

The  little  that  we  see 
From  doubt  is  never  free ; 
The  little  that  we  do 
Is  but  half-nobly  true  ; 
With  our  laborious  hiving 

"What  men  call  treasure,  and  the  gods  call  dross, 
Life  seerns  a  jest  of  Fate's  contriving, 
Only  secure  in  every  one's  conniving, 
A  long  account  of  nothings  paid  with  loss, 
Where  we  poor  puppets,  jerked  by  unseen  wires, 

After  our  little  hour  of  strut  and  rave, 
With  all  our  pasteboard  passions  and  desires, 
Loves,  hates,   ambitions,  and  immortal  fires, 
Are  tossed  pell-mell  together  in  the  grave. 
But  stay !   no  age  was  e'er  degenerate, 
Unless  men  held  it  at  too  cheap  a  rate, 
For  in  our  likeness  still  we  shape  our  fate  ; 

Ah,  there  is  something  here 
Unfathomed  by  the  cynic's  sneer, 
Something  that  gives  our  feeble  light 


COMMEMORATION  ODE.  259 

A  high  immunity  from  Night, 

Something  that  leaps  life's  narrow  bars 

To  claim  its  birthright  with  the  hosts  of  heaven  ; 

A  seed  of  sunshine  that  doth  leaven 
Our  earthly  dulriess  with  the  beams  of  stars, 

And  glorify  our  clay 

With  light  from  fountains  elder  than  the  Day ; 
A  conscience  more  divine  than  we, 
A  gladness  fed  with  secret  tears, 
A  vexing,  forward-reaching  sense 
Of  some  more  noble  permanence  ; 

A  light  across  the  sea, 

Which  haunts  the  soul  arid  will  not  let  it  be, 
Still  glimmering  from  the  heights  of  undegenerate 
years. 


V. 


Whither  leads  the  path 

To  ampler  fates  that  leads  ? 

Not  down  through  flowery  meads, 

To  reap  an  aftermath 
Of  youth's  vainglorious  weeds, 
But  up  the  steep,  amid  the  wrath 


260  COMMEMORATION  ODE. 

And  shock  of  deadly-hostile  creeds, 
Where  the  world's  best  hope  and  stay 
By  battle's  flashes  gropes  a  desperate  way, 
And  every  turf  the  fierce  foot  clings-to  bleeds. 
Peace  hath  her  not  ignoble  wreath, 
Ere  yet  the  sharp,  decisive  word 
Light  the  black  lips  of  cannon,  and  the  sword 

Dreams  in  its  easeful  sheath  ; 
But  some  day  the  live  coal  behind  the  thought, 
Whether  from  Baal's  stone  obscene, 
Or  from  the  shrine  serene 
Of  God's  pure  altar  brought, 
Bursts  up  in  flame  ;  the  war  of  tongue  and  pen 
Learns  with  what  deadly  purpose  it  was  fraught, 
And,  helpless  in  the  fiery  passion  caught, 
Shakes  all  the  pillared  state  with  shock  of  men  : 
Some  day  the  soft  Ideal  that  we  wooed 
Confronts  us  fiercely,  foe-beset,  pursued, 
And  cries  reproachful :   "  Was  it",   then,  my  praise, 
Arid  not  myself  was. loved  ?     Prove  now  thy  truth; 
I  claim  of  thee  the  promise  of  thy  youth  ; 
Give  me  thy  life,  or  cower  in  empty  phrase, 


COMMEMORATION   ODE.  26A 

The  victim  of  thy  genius,  not  its  mate ! " 
Life  may  be  given  in  many  ways, 
And  loyalty  to  Truth  be  sealed 
As  bravely  in  the  closet  as  the  field, 
So  bountiful  is  Fate  ; 
But  then  to  stand  beside  her, 
When  craven  churls  deride  her, 
To  front  a  lie  in  arms  and  not  to  yield, 
This  shows,  methinks,  God's  plan 
And  measure  of  a  stalwart  man, 
Limbed  like  the  old  heroic  breeds, 
Who  stands  self-poised  on  manhood's  solid 

earth, 

Not  forced  to  frame  excuses  for  his  birth, 
Fed  from  within  with  all  the  strength  he  needs- 

VI. 

Such  was  he,  our  Martyr-Chief, 

Whom  late  the  Nation  he  had  led, 
i 

With  ashes  on  her  head, 

Wept  with  the  passion  of  an  angry  grief: 
Forgive  me,  if  from  present  things  I  turn 


262  COMMEMORATION  ODE. 

To  speak  what  in  my  heart  will  beat  and  burn, 
And  hang  my  wreath  on  his  world-honored  urn. 
Nature,  they  say,  doth  dote, 
And  cannot  make  a  man 
Save  on  some  worn-out  plan, 
Repeating  us  by  rote  : 

For  him  her  Old  World  moulds  aside  she  threw, 
And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 

Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new, 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God,  and  true. 

How  beautiful  to  see 

Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  indeed, 
Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved  to  lead  ; 
One  whose  meek  flock  the  people  joyed  to  be, 
Not  lured  by  any  cheat  of  birth, 
But  by  his  clear-grained  human  worth, 
And  brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity ! 

They  knew  that  outward  grace  is  dust ; 
They  could  not  choose  but  trust 
In  that  sure-footed  mind's  unfaltering  skill, 
And  supple-tempered  will 


COMMEMORATION   ODE.  263 

That  bent  like  perfect   steel   to   spring   again  and 

thrust. 

His  was  no  lonely  mountain-peak  of  mind, 
Thrusting  to  thin  air  o'er  our  cloudy  bars, 
A  sea-mark  now,  now  lost  in   vapors  blind  ; 
Broad  prairie  rather,  genial,  level-lined, 
Fruitful  and  friendly  for  all  human  kind, 
Yet    also   nigh   to    Heaven    and    loved    of  loftiest 

stars. 

Nothing  of  Europe  here, 
Or,  then,  of  Europe  fronting  mornward  still, 

Ere  any  names  of  Serf  and  Peer 
Could  Nature's  equal  scheme  deface  ; 
Here  was  a  type  of  the  true  elder  race, 
And  one  of  Plutarch's  men  talked  with  us  face  to 

face. 

I  praise  him  not  ;   it  were  too  late  ; 
And  some  innative  weakness  there  must  be 
In  him  who  condescends  to  victory 
Such  as  the  Present  gives,  and  cannot  wait, 
Safe  in  himself  as  in  a  fate. 
So  always  firmly  he  : 


2G4  COMMEMORATION   ODE. 

He  knew  to  bide  his  time, 
And  can  his  fame  abide, 
Still  patient  in  his  simple  faith  sublime, 

Till  the  wise  years  decide. 
Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums, 
Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 

But  at  last  silence  comes  ; 
These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower, 
Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame, 

The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 

Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 

New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American 

vn. 

Long  as  man's  hope  insatiate  can  discern 
Or  only  guess  some  more  inspiring  goal 
Outside  of  Self,  enduring  as  the  pole, 

Along  whose  course  the  flying  axles  burn 

Of  spirits  bravely-pitched,  earth's  manlier  brood  : 
Long  as  below  we  cannot  find 

The  meed  that  stills  the  inexorable  mind ; 

So  long  this  faith  to  some  ideal  Good, 


COMMEMORATION   ODE.  265 

Under  whatever  mortal  names  it  masks, 
Freedom,  Law,  Country,  this  ethereal  mood 

That  thanks  the  Fates  for  their  severer  tasks, 
Feeling  its  challenged  pulses  leap, 
While  others  skulk  in  subterfuges  cheap, 

And,  set  in  Danger's  van,  has  all  the  boon  it  asks, 
Shall  win  man's  praise  and  woman's  love, 
Shall  be  a  wisdom  that  we  set  above 

All  other  skills  and  gifts  to  culture  dear, 

A  virtue  round  whose  forehead  we  inwreathe 
Laurels  that  with  a  living  passion  breathe 

When  other  crowns  grow,  while  we  twine  them,  sear. 
What  brings  us  thronging  these   high  rites  to 


And  seal  these  hours  the  noblest  of  our  year, 
Save  that  our  brothers  found  this  better  way  ? 

VIII. 

r 

We  sit  here  in  the  Promised  Land 

That  flows  with  Freedom's  honey  and  milk  ; 

But  't  was  they  won  it,  sword  in  hand, 

Making  the  nettle  danger  soft  for  us  as  silk. 
12 


266  COMMEMORATION  ODE. 

We  welcome  back  our  bravest  and  our  best ;  — 
Ah  me !  not  all !  some  come  not  with  the  rest, 
Who  went  forth  brave  and  bright  as  any  here! 
I  strive  to  mix  some  gladness  with  my  strain, 
But  the  sad  strings  complain, 
And  will  not  please  the  ear ; 
I  sweep  them  for  a  paean,  but  they  wane 

Again  and  yet  again 
Into  a  dirge,  and  die  away  in  pain. 
In  these  brave  ranks  I  only  see  the  gaps, 
Thinking  of  dear  ones  whom  the  dumb  turf  wraps, 
Dark  to  the  triumph  which  they  died  to  gain  : 
Fitlier  may  others  greet  the  living, 
For  me  the  past  is  unforgiving ; 
I  with  uncovered  head 
Salute  the  sacred  dead, 

Who  went,  and  who  return  not.  —  Say  not  so ! 
'T  is  not  the  grapes  of  Canaan  that  repay, 
But  the  high  faith  that  failed  riot  by  the  way ; 
Virtue  treads  paths  that  end  not  in  the  grave  ; 
No  ban  of  endless  night  exiles  the  brave  ; 
And  to  the  saner  mind 


COMMEMORATION  ODE.  2G7 

We  rather  seem  the  dead  that  stayed  behind. 
Blow,  trumpets,  all  your  exultations  blow! 
For  never  shall  their  aureoled  presence  lack: 
I  see  them  muster  in  a  gleaming  row, 
With  ever-youthful  brows  that  nobler  show; 
We  find  in  our  dull  road  their  shining  track  ; 

In  every  nobler  mood 
We  feel  the  orient  of  their  spirit  glow, 
Part  of  our  life's  unalterable  good, 
Of  all  our  saintlier  aspiration  ; 

They  come  transfigured  back, 
Secure  from  change  in  their  high-hearted  ways, 
Beautiful  evermore,  and  with  the  rays 
Of  morn  on  their  white  Shields  of  Expectation ! 

IX. 

But  is  there  hope  to  save 
Even  this  ethereal  essence  from  the  grave  ? 
What  ever  'scaped  Oblivion's  subtle  wrong 
Save  a  few  clarion   names,  or   golden   threads   of 

song? 
Before  my  musing  eye 


268  COMMEMORATION   ODE. 

The  mighty  ones  of  old  sweep  by, 
Disvoiced  now  and  insubstantial  things, 
As  noisy  once  as  we  ;  poor  ghosts  of  kings, 
Shadows  of  empire  wholly  gone  to  dust, 
And  many  races,  nameless  long  ago, 
To  darkness  driven  by  that  imperious  gust 
Of  ever-rushing  Time  that  here  doth  blow  : 
0  visionary  world,  condition  strange, 
Where  naught  abiding  is  but  only  Change, 

Where  the  deep-bolted  stars  themselves  still  shift 

and  range ! 
Shall  we  to  more  continuance  make  pretence  ? 

Renown  builds  tombs  ;  a  life-estate  is  Wit ; 
And,  bit  by  bit, 

The  cunning  years  steal  all  from  us  but  woe  ; 
Leaves  are  we,  whose  decays  no  harvest  sow. 

But,  when  we  vanish  hence, 
Shall  they  lie  forceless  in  the  dark  below, 
Save  to  make  green  their  little  length  of  sods, 
Or  deepen  pausies  for  a  year  or  two, 
Who  now  to  us  are  shining-sweet  as  gods  ? 
Was  dying  all  they  had  the  skill  to  do-? 


COMMEMORATION  ODE.  269 

That  were  not  fruitless :  but  the  Soul  resents 
Such  short-lived  service,  as  if  blind  events 
Ruled  without  her,  or  earth  could  so  endure  ; 
She  claims  a  more  divine  investiture 
Of  longer  tenure  than  Fame's  airy  rents  ; 
Whate'er  she  touches  doth  her  nature  share  ; 
Her  inspiration  haunts  the  ennobled  air, 

Gives  eyes  to  mountains  blind, 
Ears  to  the  deaf  earth,  voices  to  the  wind, 
And  her  clear  trump  sings  succor  everywhere 
By  lonely  bivouacs  to  the  wakeful  mind  ; 
rFor  soul  inherits  all  that  soul  could  dare  : 

Yea,  Manhood  hath  a  wider  span 
And  larger  privilege  of  life  than  man. 
The  single  deed,  the  private  sacrifice, 
•So  radiant  now  through  proudly-hidden  tears, 
Is  covered  up  erelong  from  mortal  eyes 
With  thoughtless  drift  of  the  deciduous  years  ; 
But   that „  high    privilege    that   makes   all    men 

peers, 
That  leap  of  heart  whereby  a  people  rise 

Up  to  a  noble  anger's  height, 


'J7  )  COMMEMORATION  ODE. 

And,    flamed    on    by    the    Fates,    not    shrink,    but 

grow  more  bright, 
That  swift  validity  in  noble  veins, 
Of  choosing  danger  and  disdaining  shame, 

Of  being  set  on  flame 
By  the  pure  fire  that  flies  all  contact  base, 
But  wraps  its  chosen  with  angelic  might, 

These  are  imperishable  gains, 
Sure  as  the  sun,  medicinal  as  light, 
These  hold  great  futures  in  their  lusty  reins 
And  certify  to  earth  a  new  imperial  race. 

x. 

Who  now  shall  sneer? 
Who  dare  again  to  say  we  trace 
Our  lines  to  a  plebeian  race? 
Roundhead  and  Cavalier! 

Dumb  are  those  names  erewhile  in  battle  loud ; 
Dream-footed  as  the  shadow  of  a  cloud, 

They  flit  across  the  ear : 
That  is  best  blood  that  hath  most  iron  in  'i 
To  edge  resolve  with,  pouring  without  stint 


COMMEMORATION   ODE.  271 

For  what  makes  manhood  dear. 
Tell  us  not  of  Plantagenets, 

Hapsburgs,  and  Guelfs,  whose  thin  bloods  crawl 
Down  from  some  victor  in  a  border-brawl ! 

How  poor  their  outworn  coronets, 
Matched  with  one  leaf  of  that  plain  civic  wreath 
Our  brave  for  honor's  blazon  shall  bequeath, 

Through  whose  desert  a  rescued  Nation  sets 
Her  heel  on  treason,  and  the  trumpet  hears 
Shout  victory,  tingling  Europe's  sullen  ears 
With  vain  resentments  and  more  vain  regrets  ! 

XI. 

Not  in  anger,  not  in  pride, 
Pure  from  passion's  mixture  rude 
Ever  to  base  earth  allied, 
But  with  far-heard  gratitude, 
Still  with  heart  and  voice  renewed, 
To  heroes  living  and  dear  martyrs  dead, 
The  strain  should  close  that  consecrates  our  brave. 
Lift  the  heart  and  lift  the  head  ! 
Lofty  be  its  mood  and  grave, 


272  COMMEMORATION  ODE. 

Not  without  a  martial  ring, 
Not  without  a  prouder  tread 
And  a  peal  of  exultation  : 
Little  right  has  he  to  sing 
Through  whose  heart  in  such  an  houi 
Beats  no  march  of  conscious  power, 
Sweeps  no  tumult  of  elation  ! 
;T  is  no  Man  we  celebrate, 
By  his  country's  victories  great, 
A  hero  half,  and  half  the  whim  of  Fate% 
But  the  pith  and  marrow  of  a  Nation 
Drawing  force  from  all  her  men, 
Highest,  humblest,  weakest,  all, 
For  her  time  of  need,  and  then 
Pulsing  it  again  through  them, 
Till  the  basest  can  no  longer  cower, 
Feeling  his  soul  spring  up  divinely  tall, 
Touched  but  in  passing  by  her  mantle-hem. 
Come  back,  then,  noble  pride,  for  'tis  her  dower! 
How  could  poet  ever  tower, 
If  his  passions,  hopes,  and  fears, 
If  his  triumphs  and  his  tears, 


COMMEMORATION  ODE.  273 

Kept  not  measure  with  his  people  ? 
Boom,  cannon,  boom  to  all  the  winds  and  wvaves  ! 
Clash  out,  glad  bells,  from  every  rocking  steeple ! 
Banners,  adance  with  triumph,  bend  your  staves ! 
And  from  every  mountain-peak 
Let  beacon-fire  to  answering  beacon  speak, 
Katahdin  tell  Monadnock,   Whiteface  he, 
And  so  leap  on  in  light  from  sea  to  sea, 
Till  the  glad  news  be  sent 
Across  a  kindling  continent, 
Making    earth    feel    more    firm    and    air    breathe 

braver  : 
"'  Be  proud !  for  she  is  saved,  and  all  have  helped 

to  save  her! 

She  that  lifts  up  the  manhood  of  the  poor, 
She  of  the  open  soul  and  open  door, 
With  room  about  her  hearth  for  all  mankind  ! 
The  fire  is  dreadful  in  her  eyes  no  more  ; 
From  her  bold  front  the  helm  she  doth  unbind, 
Sends  all  her  handmaid  armies  back  to  spin, 
And  bids  her  navies,  that  so  lately  hurled 

Their  crashing  battle,  hold  their  thunders  in, 
12*  B 


274  COMMEMORATION   ODE. 

Swimming  like   birds  of  calm   along  the  un- 

harmful  shore. 

No  challenge  sends  she  to  the  elder  world, 
That  looked  askance  and  hated  ;  a  light  scorn 
Plays  o'er  her  mouth,  as  round  her  mighty  knees 
She  calls  her  children  back,  and  waits  the  morn 
Of  nobler  day,  enthroned  between   her   subject 


xn 

Bow  down,  dear  Land,  for  thou  hast  found  release  I 
Thy  God,  in  these  distempered  days, 
Hath  taught  thee  the  sure  wisdom  of  His  ways, 
And  through  thine  enemies  hath  wrought  thy  peace! 

Bow  down  in  prayer  and  praise  ! 
No  poorest  in  thy  borders  but  may  now 
Lift  to  the  juster  skies  a  man's  enfranchised  brow- 
0  Beautiful !  my  Country !  ours  once  more ! 
Smoothing  thy  gold  of  war-dishevelled  hair 
O'er  such  sweet  brows  as  never  other  wore, 
And  letting  thy  set  lips, 
Freed  from  wrath's  pale  egjjpse, 


COMMEMORATION  ODE.  275 

The  rosy  edges  of  their  smile  lay  bare, 
What  words  divine  of  lover  or  of  poet 
Could  tell  our  love  and  make  thee  know  it, 
Among  the  Nations  bright  beyond  compare? 

What  were  our  lives  without  thee  ? 

What  all  our  lives  to  save  thee  ? 

We  reck  not  what  we  gave  thee ; 

We  will  not  dare  to  doubt  thee, 
But  ask  whatever  else,  and  we  will  dare! 


L'  E  N  V  O  I  . 


TO    THE    MUSE. 

WHITHER  ?    Albeit  I  follow  fast, 
In  all  life's  circuit  I  but  find, 
Not  -where  thou  art,  but  where  thou  wast, 

Sweet  beckoner,  more  fleet  than  wind  ! 
I  haunt  the  pine-dark  solitudes, 

With  soft  brown  silence  carpeted, 
And  plot  to  snare  thee  in  the  woods: 

Peace  I  o'ertake,  but  thou  art  fled  ! 
I  find  the  rock  where  thou  didst  rest, 
The  moss  thy  skimming  foot  hath  prest ; 

All  Nature  with  thy  parting  thrills, 
Like  branches  after  birds  new-flown  ; 

Thy  passage  hill  and  hollow  fills 
With  hints  of  virtue  not  their  own  ; 
In  dimples  still  the  water  slips 
Where  thou  hast  dipt  thy  finger-tips  ; 


280  TO  THE  MUSE. 

Just,  just  beyond,  forever  burn 

Gleams  of  a  grace  without  return ; 

Upon  thy  shade  I  plant  my  foot, 
And  through  my  frame  strange  raptures  shoot ; 
All  of  thee  but  thyself  I  grasp  ; 

I  seem  to  fold  thy  luring  shape, 
And  vague  air  to  my  bosom  clasp, 

Thou  lithe,  perpetual  Escape  ! 

One  mask  and  then  another  drops, 

And  thou  art  secret  as  before  : 
Sometimes  with  flooded  ear  I  list, 
'And  hear  "thee,  wondrous  organist, 

From  mighty  continental  stops 

A  thunder  of  new  music  pour ; 

Through  pipes  of  earth  and  air  and  stone 

Thy  inspiration  deep  is  blown  ; 

Through  mountains,  forests,  open  downs, 

Lakes,  railroads,  prairies,  states,  and  towns, 

Thy  gathering  fugue  goes  rolling  on 

From  Maine  to  utmost  Oregon  ; 

The  factory-wheels  in  cadence  hum, 


TO  THE  MUSE.  28 J 

From  brawling  parties  concords  come  ; 
All  this  I  hear,  or  seem  to  hear, 
But  when,  enchanted,  I  draw  near 
To  mate  with  words  the  various  theme, 
Life  seems  a  whiff  of  kitchen  steam, 
History  an  organ-grinder's  thrum, 

For  thou  hast  slipt  from  it  and  me 
And  all  thine  organ-pipes  left  dumb, 

Most  mutable  Perversity ! 

Not  weary  yet,  I  still  must  seek, 

And  hope  for  luck  next  day,  next  week ; 

I  go  to  see  the  great  man  ride, 

Shiplike,  the  swelling  human  tide 

That  floods  to  bear  him  into  port, 

Trophied  from  Senate-hall  and  Court ; 

Thy  magnetism,  I  feel  it  there, 

Thy  rhythmic  presence  fleet  and  rare, 

Making  the  Mob  a  moment  fine 

With  glimpses  of  their  own  Divine, 

As  in  their  demigod  they  see 

Their  cramped  ideal  soaring  free  ; 


282  TO  THE  MUSE. 

'T  was  thou  didst  bear  the  fire  about, 

That,  like  the  springing  of  a  mine 
Sent  up  to  heaven  the  street-long  shout ; 
Full  well  I  know  that  thou  wast  here, 
It  was  thy  breath  that  brushed  my  ear ; 
But  vainly  in  the  stress  and  whirl 
I  dive  for  thee,  the  moment's  pearl. 

Through  every  shape  thou  well  canst  run, 
Proteus,  'twixt  rise  and  set  of  sun, 
Well  pleased  with  logger-camps  in  Maine 

As  where  Milan's  pale  Duomo  lies 
A  stranded  glacier  on  the  plain, 
Its  peaks  and  pinnacles  of  ice 
Melted  in  many  a  quaint  device, 
And  sees,  above  the  city's  din, 
Afar  its  silent  Alpine  kin : 
I  track  thee  over  carpets  deep 
To  wealth's  and  beauty's  inmost  keep ; 
Across  the  sand  of  bar-room  floors 
'Mid  the  stale  reek  of  boosing  boors  ; 
Where  drowse  the  hay-field's  fragrant  heats,. 


TO  THE  MUSE.  283 

Or  the  flail-heart  of  Autumn  beats ; 
I  dog  thee  through  the  market's  throngs 
To  where  the  sea  with  myriad  tongues 
Laps  the  green  edges  of  the  pier, 
And  the  tall  ships  that  eastward  steer, 
Curtsey  their  farewells  to  the  town, 
O'er  the  curved  distance  lessening  down ; 
I  follow  allwhere  for  thy  sake, 
Touch  thy  robe's  hem,  but  ne'er  o'ertake, 
Find  where,  scarce  yet  unmoving,  lies, 
Warm  from  thy  limbs,  thy  last  disguise ; 
But  thou  another  shape  hast  donned, 
And  lurest  still  just,  just  beyond ! 

But  here  a  voice,  I  know  not  whence, 
Thrills  clearly  through  my  inward  sense, 
Saying:  "See  where  she  sits  at  home 
While  thou  in  search  of  her  dost  roam ! 
All  summer  long  her  ancient  wheel 

Whirls  humming  by  the  open  door, 
Or,  when  the  hickory's  social  zeal 

Sets  the  wide  chimney  in  a  roar, 


284  TO  THE  MUSE. 

Close-nestled  by  the  tinkling  hearth, 

It  modulates  the  household  mirth 

With  that  sweet  serious  undertone 

Of  duty,  music  all  her  own ; 

Still  as  of  old  she  sits  and  spins 

Our  hopes,  our  sorrows,  and  our  sins ; 

With  equal  care  she  twines  the  fates 

Of  cottages  and  mighty  states ; 

She  spins  the  earth,  the  air,  the  sea, 

The  maiden's  unschooled  fancy  free, 

The  boy's  first  love,  the  man's  first  grief, 

The  budding  and  the  fall  o'  the  leaf; 

The  piping  west-wind's  snowy  care 

For  her  their  cloudy  fleeces  spare, 

Or  from  the  thorns  of  evil  times 

She  can  glean  wool  to  twist  her  rhymes ; 

Morning  and  noon  and  eve  supply 

To  her  their  fairest  tints  for  dye, 

But  ever  through  her  twirling  thread 

There  spires  one  line  of  warmest  red, 

Tinged  from  the  homestead's  genial  heart, 

The  stamp  and  warrant  of  her  art ; 


TO  THE  MUSE.  285 

With  this  Time's  sickle  she  outwears, 
And  blunts  the  Sisters'  baffled  shears. 

"  Harass  her  not :    thy  heat  and  stir 
But  greater  coyness  breed  in  her  ; 
Yet  thou  mayst  find,  ere  Age's  frost, 
Thy  long  apprenticeship  not  lost, 
Learning  at  last  that  Stygian  Fate 
Unbends  to  him  that  knows  to  wait. 
The  Muse  is  womanish,  nor  deigns 
Her  love  to  him  that  pules  and  plains  ; 
With  proud,  averted  face  she  stands 
To  him  that  wooes  with  empty  hands. 
Make  thyself  free  of  Manhood's  guild  ; 
Pull  down  thy  barns  and  greater  build  ; 
The  wood,  the  mountain,  and  the  plain 
Wave  breast-deep  with  the  poet's  grain  ; 
Pluck  thou  the  sunset's  fruit  of  gold, 
Glean  from  the  heavens  arid  ocean  old  ; 
From  fireside  lone  and  trampling  street 
Let  thy  life  garner  daily  wheat ; 
The  epic  of  a  man  rehearse, 


TO  THE  MUSE. 

Be  something  better  than  thy  verse  ; 
Make  thyself  rich,  and  then  the  Muse 
Shall  court  thy  precious  interviews, 
Shall  take  thy  head  upon  her  knee, 
And  such  enchantment  lilt  to  thee, 
That  thou  shalt  hear  the  life-blood  flow 
From  farthest  stars  to  grass-blades  low, 
And  find  the  Listener's  science  still 
Transcends  the  Singer's  deepest  skill !  " 


THE   END. 


Cambridge  :  Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


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